


Blink and You'll Miss It

by ismycapsloudenoughforyou



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Magic, Fluff, Gen, M/M, No Smut, Platonic Relationships, blink and you'll miss the relationships amirite, i don't know how their heads work so i try to stay out of there, i focused on the plot kinda more than relationships or what have you, i only used sanha bc i didn't and don't feel comfortable writing from got7's pov, it's all poorly written tbh, just getting how they work was hard enough, kinda it's more like a boarding school than anything if we're being honest, maybe some yugbam if you really really squint, rated teen and up for language mostly, there's like two poorly written fights that are a paragraph at the longest, there's markson if you squint, there's really only fluff if you squint tbh, there's some nice banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-07 21:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ismycapsloudenoughforyou/pseuds/ismycapsloudenoughforyou
Summary: Sanha’s been a curious shit her whole life. Jackson’s always told her she’s going to get herself killed at some point. She thought that was a bunch of bull, but he might’ve actually been right. She might be in way over her head on this one.AKA there's some magic involved and half of Got7 are ghostsFeaturing: A bunch of bull, a lot of cursing, merciless butchering of honorifics, and other things. This was based on Got7's 'Look' MV





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jackson is wary of ghosts and Sanha has no regard for her personal safety
> 
> AKA Jackson is worried, Jinyoung is spooky, and Sanha is reckless

“Okay fuck this, I’m out.”

Jackson had been saying that for the past twenty minutes, so Sanha didn’t take it too seriously, rolling her eyes and tugging on his arm.

“Come _on_ , oppa, the project said we had to explore the history of the world around us, and what better way than to wander an old abandoned dorm building?”

“To look something up in a library?”

“Oh, everyone and their mother can do that. They’ve probably got something awesome we can use in here.” She pulled on a door to the side of the hall, slipping through the crack she’d created.

“You know,” he grunted, squeezing through behind her, “when I said I’d do this project with you I didn’t expect to be crawling through some old building.”

“Me either.” She was already behind the desk to the side of the room, clearing the shrubbery off of it. “It’s wild how that works, isn’t it?”

He made a face at her cheeky grin. “Just get what you want and let’s go. Old buildings always have ghosts in them.”

“Oppa~ Lighten up, just think of it like we’re the Buzzfeed Unsolved guys,” she cooed. “We come into old buildings, look around, see nothing, and leave disappointed.”

“They only don’t find anything because they’ve got cameras.”

“So pull your phone out and start recording, and we’ll be a-okay.” Sanha pulled a drawer open, her entire face lighting up. “Ah! There’s a book in here!” She took it out and thumbed through it quickly, skimming the star charts within, before brushing most of the dust off and stuffing it into the satchel at her side. Jackson spluttered indignantly.

“You’re stealing now? Do you have a death wish? We’re going to get some vengeant ghost following us home hell bent on murdering us!”

“Murdering me,” she corrected. “I’m sure they know full well you’re not in on this, what with the amount of whining you’ve been doing.”

“Okay you know the only reason I’m here is because you’re not allowed to do anything dangerous without me.”

“If you hate it so much just go back to the dorm.” Sanha slid back out the door, wandering over to the large flight of stairs to the side of the front door.

“Are you kidding? No way, you can’t do this stuff on your own.” He trooped up the stairs after her as she skipped up them, two at a time. “That just doubles your already way too high odds of getting straight up murdered. Maybe triples.”

“You worry too much,” she sang. “C’mon, let’s check out the room with our number.” She pointed at the sign on the wall as she climbed past it.

“And then we can leave?”

“I never said that.”

He groaned.

They climbed another couple flights of stairs to get up to it, which winded neither of them (the elevator in their own building was incredibly untrustworthy, so neither of them used it after it broke down and trapped them for three hours one night).

“I don’t trust this.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“The floor looks like Swiss Cheese!”

Sanha jumped over one of the holes, holding a doorknob on the other side for extra support, and grinned at him. “Weren’t you the one who called yourself a parkour king?”

“That was a _joke_! And I’m not about to let you kill yourself, even on accident.”

She crouched down and directed a finger under a section of the floor that was intact. “There’s a wall under this bit; probably load bearing.”

“That’s not how load bearing walls work.”

She shrugged. “It’s a support. Look, I’ll go first and you can just step where I do.”

“And I guess you’ll expect me to catch you when you inevitably fall,” he grumbled as he carefully walked on the section with the wall under it, testing it with each step. “Well no way, if you fall you’re just going to fall.”

“Love you too.”

“And besides, you’re a little featherweight.” The sound of his mumbled rant carried her forwards. “It might all crumble under me even if it holds you.”

“I won’t judge you if you wait at the landing, you know.”

“I can’t let you do something stupid on your own; your mom’ll kill me.”

“She doesn’t even know you, remember? She’s back in America.”

“She knows we’re roommates.” Jackson flinched slightly as the floorboard under his foot creaked. “Man, why couldn’t you get someone else to go for you? Like Youngjae.”

“You know I’d never willingly put the kid in danger, and besides it’s no fun to let someone stick their nose places for you.”

“At the very least I wouldn’t have to worry so much,” he grumbled. “You’re not even on a news crew, why do you insist on doing shit like this?”

“Blind curiosity, my dear Watson,” she sang, leaning backwards while holding onto the doorknob for 1704. The rotted door jamb split and the door abruptly swung open, pulling her dangerously close to a hole in the floor. Jackson sucked in a breath and reached out to catch her, but she caught herself with room to spare. The broken pieces of wood clattered to the floor below.

“Be more careful!” He didn’t bring up the Watson comment, so she knew it’d really scared him.

“I’m sorry, but everything’s fine, see? Nobody’s injured.” She peered over the edge, noting that she’d only have fallen a story if she hadn’t been able to catch herself. “It’s not even that far of a drop.”

“ _Not that far_ ,” he imitated. “It’s a full story, you could break your neck.”

“Probably just a leg.”

“That’s not much better!”

Sanha pulled the door back open, gesturing dramatically for Jackson to enter first. He made an exaggeratedly gallant bow. “Please, thrill seekers first.”

She grinned and playfully batted his shoulder before testing the floor and stepping inside. Jackson followed closely behind, close enough she could feel his breathing.

“Heyyy, they’ve got a balcony in here!” She whistled appreciatively. “Living large and in charge.”

“Wish we had a balcony back at our own _not haunted, not rundown, warm and safe dormitory_.” His voice grew steadily more passive aggressive as he continued. “Wish we were there instead of _here_.”

She ignored him. “You think they turned it into a haunted house attraction?” She tapped her fingers across a dust covered wooden table. “From like a theme park or something?”

“No not really. Why, did you find a prop skeleton in the closet? Maybe a skeleton that _isn’t a prop_?!”

She snickered. “Yeah, and it’s got a floppy brim purple hat. No, I can hear the backing track for it. Maybe I tripped a switch downstairs?”

“Hold on, you hear _the_ _backing track_? Like, creepy music?”

“I mean I hear something like that. Might just be my phone,” she mused as she fumbled around her pocket to take said item out and check if the music had started playing while she wasn’t paying attention.

“I swear, Sanha, if you dragged us into this and get an angry ghost sicced on yourself then I’m going to _holy fuck what is that_ -!”

Her neck snapped up so quickly she gave herself whiplash. A dark, humanoid shadow was silhouetted on the doors to the balcony. “Whoa,” she mumbled. The music in her ears swelled, and she could almost make out the lyrics. Despite any instinct for self preservation, she took a few careful steps toward the balcony doors, reaching a hand out. The figure began to turn, and in one fluid move she closed the remaining distance and pushed the doors open-

-and immediately tripped as her foot caught on a tear in the carpet. She scraped her hands on the weather worn wood as she slammed into the floor. A curse word escaped her as she forced herself to look up, her whole body quaking.

“Oh my god.” It took all of a second for her to burst out laughing. “Oh my god, oppa look.” Her sides shook for a completely different reason. “It was a bird. It was a fucking bird, oh my god.” No response. She turned around to see Jackson clutching his heart, his back pressed against 1701 across the hall and burst out laughing again.

“Let’s both agree,” he said, breathing heavily, “to never speak of this.”

It didn’t take much convincing for her to agree.

“Maybe there’s something, you know, _on the ground floor_ for you to poke your nose into,” he said once his breathing steadied.

“Nahhh.” She skipped back down the stairs, stopping in front of a broken door as her carefree tone dulled into a thoughtful hum. “Well, maybe.”

“There’s got to be something; it’s an old building covered in dust and ivy that no one’s lived in for probably centuries out in the middle of nowhere.” He gestured around them, indicating the moonlight that streamed through gaps in the ivy that covered a broken window.

“It’s still in a halfway decent condition,” she commented, knocking three times on the shattered door.

“Yeah, except for the Swiss Cheese floors,” he grumbled, “and this door that somebody took an axe to; that bodes well.”

She hummed lightly in response, squeezing through the wide crack, her clothes catching on the sharper sides of the hole as he complained about her always running towards the danger. She heard him rattling the knob behind her as she pulled herself through.

“Sanha stop, the door’s locked!”

“Climb through the crack, silly.”

“I don’t fit!” His face appeared in the crack. “Not all of us are midgets.”

“Just make the crack larger, or just wait there. I’m not picky.”

“Yah, Kim Sanha! Don’t you dare go on alone!”

“Oh, chill out. I’ll be back in a sec.” She kept walking, her feet kicking up dust. “It’s just an empty hallway anyway, I just wanna see the view out the window.”

She ignored him as he kept calling her name, continuing down. It was a surprisingly long hallway, and there were lightened square spots on the wallpaper where, she assumed, someone had hung pieces of art. Too impatient to walk the whole way, she ran to the end, the draft from the broken window at the end blowing her hair off her shoulders.

“Oh man, oppa, don’t you wish you could see this,” she called back as she gazed out the window in awe. The sky had long gone dark, but now was colored in beautiful hues of soft pinks and lavender, and the stars were so bright and brilliant. There were more than she’d ever seen before. She pulled her phone out and snapped a few pictures, before just standing there a second, a soft smile resting comfortably on her features as she leaned on the windowsill.

Finally turning around, she jogged back to the other end of the hallway.

“Find anything of interest?” Jackson asked tiredly, sounding done with her shit.

“Actually I did, literally the best view. . . you’ve ever. . .”

Jackson’s heartbeat audibly sped up. “What? What’re you- Why did you stop?”

“I-” She knew there hadn’t been anyone in the hallway just seconds before, and there weren’t any open doors. And yet, there he was, standing there at the end by the window, teal jacket brushing his knees.

As if in slow motion, he turned and they locked eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and she forgot how to blink, how to think, how to unstick her breathing, how to reassure her friend everything was okay as the man started moving towards her, slow at first, before he ran. She watched him in slow motion, a voice ringing out into her ears singing the words to the melody she’d heard faintly upstairs.

“ _Don’t look away, keep your eye contact with me, nobody can take us apart_.” His lips weren’t moving, but she knew it was him singing as he halved the distance between them. The lightened squares on the walls grew even lighter until a sunshine sky seeped through as though they were windows. Unconsciously she reached out to him as he was to her, the desperation on his face striking a chord within her.

“Sanha!” Jackson’s urgent voice slipped through the man’s melody, and without thinking she glanced at her friend. The song ended abruptly, fading away in a split second and when she returned her gaze to the hallway half a second later, the man was gone as though he’d never been there. “Sanha what the hell happened, why’d you stop?”

“. . . nothing.” She forced herself to laugh, eyes still unfocused, before shaking her head and returning her gaze to her friend. “Nothing happened, I was just fucking with you.”

“Aish, you little twerp. I thought you were about to get murdered,” he griped.

“Sorry.”

“No you aren’t, just get back over here and let’s _go_.”

“Okay okay.” A giggle escaped her lips despite her confusion as she crawled back through the door. She’d tell him what she’d seen later, once they’d left the building. She was pretty sure that he’d actually murder her if he knew. The only reason he’d even come was to make sure she didn’t get killed, and she almost had.

“Hope you’ve seen everything you wanted to because you are never coming back.”

She hummed unconvincingly, tearing down the stairs ahead of him so he didn’t have time to think about it. “Last one to the car has to buy dinner!”

“ _It’s midnight!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come scream at me on tumblr under the same user (ismycapsloudenoughforyou)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Sanha gets curious and finds something odd
> 
> AKA Sanha sits in a library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this has been edited, and initially any ‘dorms’ were apartments. I didn’t want to edit it too much because it would majorly mess up the plot beyond repair. Please just assume that this school is rich as hell

“Did you seriously go antique shopping again?”

“You never know what kinds of stuff you’ll find!”

She set the stack of ancient picture frames on the counter, dust billowing into the air. Her roommate waved it away, coughing. Youngjae added a few frames to the stack with his free hand, the other occupied with an old looking lamp (although it ran on electricity, as evidenced by the power cable hanging off his elbow).

“I see you dragged our neighbor into this,” Jackson noted.

Sanha rolled her eyes with a grin. “You hate antiques shopping, I didn’t want to _inconvenience_ you.”

“At least it’s less dangerous than wandering closed off sections of campus.” Jackson lifted a picture frame from the top of the stack. “What’re you going to use these for?”

“What are picture frames for?” she countered, carefully taking the frame out of his hands.

He sighed at her, exaggerating the motion. “You’re a _witch_ , honey, I never know what’s for your spells and what’s for home decor.”

“These’re for spells.” She held up half of the frames, all with cracks in the glass. “The rest are for decor.”

“And the lamp?”

“That’s for me.” Youngjae beamed. “It’s in decent condition.”

“Does it even turn on?”

“Why do you have to be such a buzzkill?” Sanha teased. “Can’t you just let us have our hobbies?”

“At least this one can’t get you killed,” Jackson conceded. Sanha knocked on wood, and he made a face at her before turning to their neighbor. “Thank you for going with her and making sure she doesn’t go anywhere dangerous.”

“You’re welcome hyung!”

~~ ~~ ~~

Sanha sat on her heels on her bedroom floor, sorting out her new picture frames and wiping them off with a dust cloth. She’d read somewhere that picture frames could act as a viewing portal, especially if the glass was cracked, and was eager to try it out herself. She had a couple pictures from some old haunts that she’d like to look into, literally.

She gently pulled the back out of the frame, swiping it with the dust cloth. To her surprise, a piece of paper pulled free and drifted to the floor. She’d thought the yellowed back was part of the frame. She picked up the brittle paper with the utmost care, turning it over in her hands to reveal a newspaper clipping on the other side. The Korean seemed like a different way of speaking than she was used to, meaning it was probably a really old article, if the state of the paper wasn’t enough to denote that. It was hard to decipher, what with regular Korean reading still being difficult for her to read just on its own, along with a couple coffee stains littering the text, but she managed to get the general gist of it.

{A translation can be found below; the ellipses (...) mark places which could not be read. Addresses have been omitted for privacy reasons}

_Officials still have not determined a cause for the explosion last Friday night. (...) The school has shut down the unstable section of campus for the discernable future. (...) Five students are still unaccounted for. Information or tips as to their whereabouts can be sent to [omitted]._

She could see the top half of the characters for someone’s name below that and a bit of their hair in the accompanying photo, but not enough to guess the name or the person. She didn’t know the exact date of whatever explosion the article detailed, it wasn’t written, and she didn’t know which school. But an explosion on the grounds of a school tickled her curiosity, and that called for an investigation. That meant research, which she’d openly admit was her favorite part. She pulled her computer onto her lap and began.

Obviously, the first thing to do was make sure her search engine was in Korean. That done, she plugged in a couple search keywords. _Five students missing. Five students killed. School explosion. Campus shut down._ Only the last pulled up anything she wanted, and all it said was that her school had closed off one section of their campus. Boring. She hadn’t needed google to tell her that.

Just as she was about to click off the tab, her eyes skimmed across the date and she halted. The section had closed in the 20th century. The _mid_ 20th century. That meant it’d been closed off for almost fifty years. The paper looked about that old.

Then again, she wasn’t exactly an expert on aged paper, but at the moment it was her best and only lead. The digital archives of the paper only held so much, and she knew what that meant.

“ _Oppa, I’m going on a field trip!_ ”

~~ ~~ ~~

Jackson had almost insisted on coming until she told him she was going to the library. Then he told her to have fun and not do anything stupid and said he’d be sitting this one out. He suggested she grab Jaebum on her way out, but she was in a bit of a hurry.

Which was how she found herself cross legged on the floor of the library surrounded by piles of old newspapers. The librarian had been a little nervous, but since Sanha was a regular (and a voracious reader) and always treated the books with respect, she’d been let loose on the old newspapers after promising to be careful.

She’d found an article about the school having a big dance in a copy of the school’s old newspaper, dated around the time the online article had said the section was closed off. She wasn’t sure if it mattered, but she made a note of it and moved on, setting it in the pile she’d dubbed ‘could be important but probably is not’. It was the smallest of the piles, next to the empty space where she’d put the important stuff and dwarfed by the pile she’d dubbed ‘definitely not important but also kinda interesting’. Most pages went into that pile.

She had a couple issues of the paper left before she’d reach the exact day the section closed, meaning she was almost at a dead end. Despite her apprehension at hitting dead air and having to find a new mystery to poke her nose into, she pushed onward, avoiding her instinct to slow down.  
In the issue dated three days after the school dance and a day after the school had closed the section, she found the full version of the clipping she’d found in the picture frame. The article itself wasn’t interesting, aside from the confirmation that there had been an explosion on her school’s grounds and that some students had gone missing.

No, the interesting bit lay in the pictures that accompanied it, and the articles that came in the days preceding it, front page.

 _Dormitory explodes!_ the headline read in huge lettering. The pictures accompanying the article were a before and after. The clipping had only shown the after, and as she stared at the before, blind energy and disbelief surged through her. Not only did she recognize the ‘before’ photo of the ruined building, but she’d been there. _She’d walked around inside a destroyed building_. And yet, the picture showing the aftermath of the explosion displayed a mound of rubble with emergency response teams picking through the debris for survivors.

The article from the next day listed the names and photos of five missing students, four male and one female. A couple of the names sounded foreign (one boy was called ‘Mark’, as American a name as she could imagine), but the one that caught her wasn’t that of a foreigner. It wasn’t even the name at all.

Smiling almost _knowingly_ up at her from the tiny picture box was the boy from the building, the singing guy who’d run towards her.

She had to set the paper down, bending down to rest her elbows on the floor in a way that stretched out her spine, the thoughts in her mind spinning fast enough that she barely even noticed the pain. She and Jackson had wandered around in a building that didn’t exist, and she’d seen a boy who had gone missing fifty years prior. He didn’t look a day older, either, even though he was probably old enough to be her dad. Maybe her grandfather, if her ancestors had kids quick enough. Was it a ghost? Could buildings be ghosts? Did ghosts even exist?

“They rebuilt it.” She voiced her thoughts aloud. “That must be. They rebuilt the dorm building, and we walked around in that.” It had to be what had happened. They’d rebuilt that building and shut it down again due to an outcry from the parents of the community and just left it there.

She had to check. She had to make sure she wasn’t crazy.

Snapping pictures of the articles she’d found, she put all the papers back where she’d found them and hightailed it out the door. She wasn’t sure she’d ever moved that fast in her life. Rain beat onto her forehead, almost causing her to pause in her mission to just stand there and listen to the soothing sound of it hitting the pavement and her head, but she instead shook her head and carried on. Investigations waited for no one.

Jackson would be livid, of course, but he _had_ told her to have fun. And she was definitely having fun. The most fun she’d had in a while.

She didn’t need to check a map to get to the closed section, and slipped through the hole in the fence that she and Jackson had gone through the first time, hidden behind the sign whose words had faded away long ago but probably said ‘stay out’. Slipping on loose stones, barely avoiding spraining an ankle, she made her way back to where they’d seen the building for the first time.

Stepping around a faculty building, she stopped dead in her tracks.

The articles were right. The building was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which research is done, banter is had, and exposition is dumped

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The magic in this story is only loosely based on real witchcraft, and much of it is just complete bullcrap. I apologize for any offense which can be taken from the portrayal (or however it is you phrase that).

Sanha stepped through the front door two hours past curfew, dripping with water and totally exhausted. Jackson whirled around from where he’d been pacing and jumped on her immediately, not seeming to care that she was soaking as he squeezed the life out of her.

“Oh my god, I was so worried,” he mumbled into her neck, before pulling back and whacking her shoulder. “Yah, where were you, idiot? You told me you were going to the library!”

“I went to the library!” she defended, pulling her shoes and socks off and leaving them on the doormat. “Can I get changed before the interrogation, please? Believe it or not, wet clothes are uncomfortable as hell.”

“You’d better come right back out after you’re done!”

“Sure thing, dad.” She playfully rolled her eyes as she trudged over to her room, shedding her wet things and swiping a towel over her body before changing into some pajamas and heading back out.

“You didn’t go wander around some old dangerous spot without me, did you?” He cut right to the chase.

“No oppa, I did some research in the library. You know, like I told you I was going to do.”

“Research does not keep you outside two hours late.” He dropped onto the couch. “Sanha, don’t act like I’m dumb.”

She sighed. “Well, I was trying to keep you from having a heart attack, but I guess if you’re into that sort of thing.” His eyes darkened slightly, and she was pretty sure he would be shouting her full name after she said her next sentence. “I did go to the library, but after I finished up there I did a little bit of solo research. You know, in the field.”

“What do you mean, in the field?”

“Well,” she started, “I may have gone to that closed section again.”

Per her expectations, he exploded. “You went back on your own?! Sanha you know you could’ve gotten me! I know I complain and get on your back a lot but I’d still gladly save your ass in an emergency! If you get hurt out there and no one’s around, what’re you going to do? I’d never know; nobody’d ever know!”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. You know I get like that sometimes.” She did feel bad. He was right, after all. It was always obvious that he really cared for her, so when she inadvertently put herself in danger all the time, he worried.

“I just worry you’ll poke your nose into the wrong spot and get yourself killed without me.”

“So you’d be okay with me getting killed with you?”

He gave her an exasperated look, but the effect was ruined by the smile tugging on the edges of his lips. “Just, next time, grab me. Or someone else. Really, I’d be fine if you dumped me for the kid, or Jaebum hyung.”

“You know he doesn’t go for that kind of thing.”

“Do I?” They exchanged a soft laugh, and everything felt okay. “So what’d you sprint off to research?”

“You will literally never believe it,” she said, an almost secretive grin spreading across her face, giddy in her knowledge. “I honestly can’t say I understand it all myself.”

“Hit me with what you do understand.” He slid off the couch to sit cross legged on the floor, batting his eyes like he was a little kindergartner waiting for storytime. “If I’m helping with field research I need to know the library bits.”

“Don’t get your hopes up; I’m moving back to library research after this. Got a couple things I need to look up.”

“If it’s interesting I might consider helping,” he joked, and as she laughed he echoed the words she’d just said: “Don’t get your hopes up!”

She explained how she’d found the clipping and done further research on its origins. He nodded along, seeming to only half pay attention, until she hit him with the reason it meant anything.

“The building _exploded_?! How the hell were we wandering around in it then?!”

“I don't know.” She fiddled with the potted plants she’d pulled into her lap as she spoke. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out in the next phase of my investigation.”

Despite his wild confusion, Jackson snorted. “You make it sound all formal.”

“It is formal, you half-open soda!” she insisted.

“How do we know we were even there?” He leaned against the couch. “Maybe it was fake. Maybe it was a different building. Maybe that plant you gave me causes hallucinations instead of emotional balance.”

“Alyssum doesn’t cause hallucinations, you dingus. It’s a flower, not LSD.” Sanha rolled her eyes even as she threaded the tiny flowers from said plant into a bracelet. “And I didn’t get directions to the rubble dorm building and went right where we’d gone, and if none of that convinces you. . .” She tossed a book onto the floor with a satisfying thump. “Boom. Remember when you got on me about stealing? Looks like that came in handy. There’s our proof.”

Jackson picked the book up and paged through it. “I’m still mad about the stealing.” He eyed her as he spoke. “And I still think it could end in our untimely deaths. But you were right, it came in handy.” He raised a hand at her triumphant grin. “I am in no way condoning the five finger rule, so don’t get full of yourself!”

She pouted for about two seconds before springing back up. “It’s crazy, right?”

“Completely.” He shut the book with a snap and set it back on the floor.

“And that’s not even the craziest part~!”

He groaned. “Oh god, do I want to know?”

“I dunno, do you?”

“Yes, continue.” There wasn’t any hesitation in his response, so she went on and told him about the boy, Jinyoung, in the building. He only shouted at her once, and that was to tell her she was a fucking idiot and he should’ve known she wasn’t acting because she’s not that good at lying.

“He’s part of the next phase,” she finished. “After we’ve figured out what the hell is going on with the ghost building-”

“Or given up.”

Sanha paused to shake her head at him. “I’m not going to give up.” He shrugged at her. “Anyway, once we’ve figured out what’s going on with the building, we’ll deal with figuring out what the hell I saw in the hallway.”

“Just promise me you’re not going to die.”

“I’m not gonna do it on purpose.”

“Sanha you know what I mean. Don’t go running towards certain death, okay?”

“I promise I won’t.” She held up her right hand as she spoke, pausing for a second after with a thoughtful expression. “Although, why’re you just making me say this now?”

“All those other times we were just rooting around in the basement or something, where the worst that could happen was a detention.” Jackson leaned backwards until he was laying down. “This time is different. There’s something fishy as fuck going on with that building and it could be dangerous. More than we know.”

“I’ll keep you in the loop.” She joined him on the floor. “You think we should tell Youngjae and Jaebum oppa?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Jackson mumbled. “You know, so they could get our last wishes to the next of kin.”

“So they could help, dingus.” She giggled sleepily. “Because you hate library work, and besides, it never hurts to have backup.”

“That’s assuming they believe us and want in.”

“Why wouldn’t they? It’s not like this is a deadly profession or something.”

“Not a deadly profession, hmm?” Jackson hummed. “Being curious is only a safe profession when it’s curiosity about the cooking club. The way you run things, you’d be safer on a minefield.”

“You’re exaggerating.” She smiled. “Besides, it’s boring on the sidewalk. Sometimes you’ve just gotta jump into the street and go for it, ya know?”

“More like off a cliff, but okay. You know there’re safer ways you could get information, like interviews.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

~~ ~~ ~~

They didn’t manage to make it off the floor, and when they finally woke up to their neighbors’ pounding on the door, the pair looked so disheveled that if it weren’t for the fact that they were fully clothed someone might’ve thought they were doing it the previous night. In the ensuing commotion they barely emerged from the room with their heads attached. They both ended up being five minutes late to their respective first classes and thus didn’t get a chance to so much as mention the insane debacle to their friends until their schedules were long over and they crashed on the floor again.

Now they all had gathered around the remains of the dorm building. It had been Jaebum’s idea, after they’d filled their neighbors in. Since they were trying to figure out how to find the ghost building, he suggested (and insisted) they test things out in the field rather than simply speculating. So, armed with a WiFi hotspot and a couple theories they’d headed out.

“What’d you guys have that day?” Jaebum asked from behind the laptop, striking out the last failed test.

“Same stuff I have right now,” Sanha said, frustratedly kicking a pebble into the remains of the building.

“You’re sure? Nothing magical at all?”

“Nothing.”

“Maybe it’s got something to do with those star charts you found?” Youngjae suggested, sitting as close to Jaebum as he could get while flipping through said book. He got kind of freaked out when it came to investigations late at night or in other spooky situations, and the sun was sinking on the horizon.

“What would stars have to do with ghost buildings?” Jackson turned from where he’d been pitching pebbles into the ruin.

“Well, if it was some kind of spell then maybe it’s weakest at a certain point, timing wise?” He turned a page. “Like here it says that the best time to cast love spells is when the sun is in Cancer.”

“Whatever that means.” Jackson snorted and turned back to the pebbles.

“No, we might be onto something.” Jaebum’s fingers flew across the keyboard. Sanha joined them on the piece of rubble they’d perched on, looking over the older boy’s shoulder. “What day were you here?”

“Last Saturday.” They scrolled through the webpage.

“What does any of this have to do with the building?” Jackson threw a rock against a piece of rubble to crack it into smaller bits as he spoke.

“Different planets have different powers, you know, different influences, and each one ‘rules’ a different day.” Sanha pulled herself away from the computer to explain. “So different spells have more power behind them if they’re cast on a certain day, and they have less power on certain days.”

“Oh.” He paused. “So is that why you always do spells for doing well on your exams on Sunday?” She nodded. He made a noise of understanding. “I just thought that was because the test was Monday.”

“I mean it was partially that.”

“Got it!” At Jaebum’s words she leaned back over the computer. “Psychic attack, banishing negative energy, increasing prosperity, purification. . .”

Youngjae frowned. “None of that sounds like what we’re looking for.”

“Wait wait, right there!” Sanha’s urgent words called everyone’s attention. “There, glamour! Glamour’s weaker on Saturdays.”

Youngjae’s nose wrinkled in confusion. “What does that mean?”

“It’s kind of like an illusion.” Jackson answered that one. “You can glamour an object to look like something it isn’t.”

The younger boy looked surprised. “How’d you know that, hyung?”

“Sanha’s pranked me with it before,” he grumbled, looking away. Sanha grinned in a self congratulatory manner for a few seconds before refocusing.

“So maybe that’s what this is,” Jaebum mused, staring across the empty space as though he could see the building.

“It’s a really good glamour though.” Sanha frowned, getting up again and joining Jackson in the ruins. “Since if the building is actually still here, we just walked through the wall.”

“So we’ll have to come back Saturday then?” Youngjae asked.

“I guess so.” Jaebum closed his computer, still glaring into the ruins as he thought. “And look into stuff that protects against glamour.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the rest of the characters finally show up and the confusing bits begin
> 
> AKA I finally get the rest of Got7 in and proceed to immediately confuse the fuck out of the reader

“Oh my god I can’t believe I forgot!” Sanha groaned, leaning backward until she’d knocked her chair onto the floor. Youngjae jumped at the sudden noise, laughing sheepishly afterwards.

“I can,” Jackson said dryly, grinning as she playfully glared at him. “What’d you forget?”

“Alyssum, it doesn’t just help with emotional balance, it protects against glamours and hexes.” She slapped her forehead. “God, I’m such an idiot!”

“So pack some.” Jackson pushed his own chair back and grabbed the opal necklace they’d picked up at a store the day before. He draped it around his neck, and Sanha laughed.

“You look like my grandmother.”

“At least I’m not going to die.”

“Opal just makes you brave and blocks glamour, silly. It doesn’t protect you.”

“It gets combined into strong opal and passes that on to the wearer,” he insisted. “I looked it up.”

She shrugged and slid her own necklace on. “Mine matches my aesthetic.”

“I hate to break it to you, but you’re as colorful and cheerful as you can get. Ebony does not match you,” Jaebum stated as he settled a crown of alyssum flowers in his hair.

“Yeah well, I never pegged you as a flower crown kind of guy but here we are.”

“You’re just jealous.”

Youngjae pulled on his bracelet of lava rock and bronzite and stood. “Guys, we have to go, we’re losing daylight.”

“You know daylight doesn’t matter for what we’re doing, right?” Sanha asked as she slung her bag over her shoulder.

“It makes it easier to not die while we’re getting there.”

“Finally, someone who agrees with me!” Jackson threw his arm around Youngjae’s shoulders. Sanha rolled her eyes at them and pulled the door open.

“After you!”

As they walked, Sanha filled them in on the research she’d done into what she might’ve seen.

“Right now, all I know with absolute certainty is that it’s not a ghost,” she explained. “Our best bet right now is that it’s a spirit.”

“Aren’t those the same thing?”

“Not exactly.” Sanha’s brow furrowed as she tried to think how to phrase it, and she pulled her notepad out of the bag at her side, flipping through the pages to find her notes.

“You still use a physical notepad?” Youngjae stared at her.

“I’m old fashioned.” She shrugged. “And anyway, it helps me organize. Do you want the question answered or not?”

“Ghosts are remnants of people that were once alive and died in some horrendous way or with unfinished business,” Jaebum explained for her while she found her page. “ ‘Spirit’ includes ghosts but a little more than that besides.”

“Yeah,” Sanha agreed, tracing her pen down the page. “Ghosts manifest as dark shadows and these little sounds, but rarely more than that. Spirits are practically physical, which is kind of what I saw, and they aren’t necessarily a dead person. Essentially they’re like the soul of a person, ‘the energetic part’, and it leaves the body when they die. They can possess other bodies too.”

“So are they evil or nice, or what?”

“That depends. And get this, if the spirit in the body isn’t the original, they’re basically invincible! Isn’t that exciting?”

Jackson groaned. “Thanks, that makes me feel so much better.”

“At least you have your necklace.”

“So if the guy in the building’s a spirit then what’re we meant to do about it? I mean, he’s probably dead, that’s why he’s a spirit.”

“I don’t think that’s it.” A thoughtful frown appeared on Youngjae’s face. “It’s too simple. Besides, the building didn’t actually explode. Something else must’ve happened, and they covered it up.”

“So they got murdered?” Jaebum theorized.

Youngjae shook his head as he moved the sign away from the fence so they could sneak through the hole. “Glamouring a whole building to fake an explosion just because a couple kids were killed seems excessive, since they probably could’ve just actually blown up the building. It would’ve used a lot less energy than sustaining the glamour.”

“So you think they’re still alive?” Sanha leaned on the sign, waiting her turn. “And it’s all a plot to hide that fact?”

“That’s what I think right now.” He squeezed through the hole. “That’s all assuming that the building isn’t destroyed, though.”

Sanha snorted, sliding through the fence. “Please, I’m nosy, not nuts.”

They put the sign back and headed for the dorm building. As though from some previous agreement, they all paused at the last corner.

“Well.” Sanha sighed. “Moment of truth. Who’s going first?”

They stared at each other for a second, before Jackson pulled up a clenched fist hovering over his palm without breaking eye contact. “Best two out of three, winners fight and the overall winner decides.”

With the rules set, they paired off and played.

Eventually, they reached the overall game, with Jackson facing Jaebum. Jaebum won the first round, they tied three times, and Jackson pulled it back with two consecutive wins. The mood of the situation was temporarily lost as he danced around victoriously.

“Yeah, that’s right! Who’s the best!” he crowed at the sky. Sanha covered her mouth as she bent over from her laughter. “Okay, so anyone except Sanha can go first.”

“You have to actually pick someone, oppa, that was the prize.”

“Really? Okay fine. Jaebum hyung.”

Sighing like he’d expected it, Jaebum stepped around the corner. There was a breathless second as they waited for feedback before Sanha ran out of patience and stepped around the corner herself.

“It worked.” The words dropped out of her mouth with her breath as she stared up at the dorm building silhouetted against the sky. “It actually worked.”

“Damn.” Jackson stepped out next to her, making a face as she whispered for him to watch his language.

“Okay.” Youngjae breathed out semi-fearfully. “This just got real.”

“If you want to back out now it’s totally fine,” Sanha reassured him.

He threw his shoulders back and shook his head. “It’ll be okay. How bad can it be?” Jackson leaned around behind him to knock on wood.

“Let’s go before it gets too late.” Jaebum strode forward, looking confident in body, but his face screamed that he was definitely not sure about any of this. “Sanha, where’d you see the spirit?”

“Second floor past a broken door. Jackson oppa knows what it looks like.”

“Speaking of the broken door,” Jackson started. “How are we going to get through that? It’s locked, and Sanha’s the only one small enough to get through.”

“We break it more?” Youngjae suggested as Jaebum pushed the front door open and they slipped inside.

“I could always just go at it alone.”

“ _No_!” Sanha’s suggestion was immediately shot down by three vehement voices. She lifted her hands in surrender and swung the front door almost closed.

“Jeez, find some chill. It’s this way.” She led the way up the stairs as they continued debating behind her. The broken door looked just like she remembered, and without waiting for the boys she crawled through the hole.

“Sanha I swear to god-” Jackson’s heated statement stopped threateningly in the middle.

“Just break the door, silly, I’m not going to go anywhere.” She rolled her eyes.

“We agreed that was a bad idea,” Jaebum reminded her.

“I didn’t agree anything.” She leaned against the wall, staring down at the window at the end. “I told you, I’m not going anywhere. Just get the door and get in here.”

Someone started kicking at the edges of the hole, so she moved farther down to avoid the chips of wood that flew from the edges. As she did, a few notes sounded in her ears, familiar chords. A soft _oh_ dropped from her lips as she turned to the hallway, anticipation thrumming through her body. What had he said? _Don’t look away, keep your eye contact with me._

“ _. . . no one can keep us apart._ ” The soft words met her ears, and then there he was, standing at the end of the hall.

“Hi.” She breathed the word out in her awed exhale. She was acutely aware of Jackson’s exasperated breath behind her as he struggled to pull himself through the hole, but refused to look away this time as the boy ran down the hall. Daylight streamed into the hallway, she reached out to him, his hand was so close-

-and he went straight through her.

“Dammit!” she swore and dropped her hand, turning quickly around. He hadn’t vanished, luckily, but he stared at his hands with a bleak, shocked expression. The daylight in the hallway went out, and everything was the same except for the new presence.

“Language,” Jackson snapped breathlessly. “If I can’t say it, neither can you.” He seemed completely unaware of the boy standing maybe a foot from him. They made confused eye contact before going back to Jackson. “You mind giving me a hand?”

“Yes,” she teased automatically, despite her confusion, moving to give him a hand. As soon as he was through, he kicked the door next to the handle a couple times and it swung open, the door jamb splitting.

“The damn thing opens the wrong way,” he explained.

“Why didn’t you just tell me to do it?”

“Because you’re a little featherweight, and it was easier to do it the other way.” He surveyed the hallway as she scoffed in mock offense. “So where’s your spirit at?”

She gave him a confused look. “Can you seriously not see him?” Sanha glanced back at the slightly transparent man in the corner, with Youngjae following her gaze.

“Sanha there’s nothing there.” Jaebum frowned, glancing between her and the corner.

Youngjae snapped his fingers. “It must be items!” He turned to Sanha. “That’s why we can see him but they can’t.” Abruptly he turned and bowed to the confused boy in the corner. “Hi, by the way.”

“Oh thank god, I’m useless,” Jackson said sarcastically.

“No, you just brought the wrong thing.” Sanha frowned down at her ebony pendent. “I don’t know what about this would lead to. . .” She trailed off.

“Does anyone mind explaining?” Jinyoung finally spoke.

“Oh shit, of course.” Sanha dropped the pendent and bowed, ignoring Jackson calling out her language. “I’m Kim Sanha, beside me is Wang Jackson, Im Jaebum, and Choi Youngjae. It’s a long, wild, story but the gist is I’m trying to figure out what’s up with this section of campus with my wide array of sidekicks!”

“Partners,” Jaebum edited her statement.

“Details.”

“I’m Park Jinyoung.” He bowed hesitantly, still seeming confused.

“Sorry if this is rushing things, but what the fuck happened here?” Sanha pulled out her notepad and prepared to write down anything that seemed important.

“I’m really not sure,” he admitted. “I broke up with my girlfriend and she didn’t like that, so she enlisted the help of another guy in our dorm and did something that moved us into another universe, I think.”

“Just you and her?”

“Me, Mark, Yugyeom, her, and the guy, BamBam. I guess he’s a demon, because he was the one with the magic knowledge.”

As he spoke, Sanha ran through the five missing students. She didn’t recognize the last name, and assumed it was a nickname for the other male student. It didn’t sound like the name of a demon to her, but she hadn’t done research into demons so that made sense.

“So the others are still here?” He nodded. “Are they in an intangible form like yours?”

“I think so. To tell the truth, I didn’t know I was until I ran through you. While we’re on the subject, I’m sorry about that. Honestly, you’re the first new person I’ve seen in a really long time.”

“You’re good,” she reassured him.

“Where are the others?” Youngjae asked.

Jinyoung stared past them with a thoughtful expression. “Mark usually hangs out in 1704, and I think Yugyeom is in 1209. BamBam you don’t want to run into but he tends to hang around the third floor, and I haven’t seen my ex since the first day.” Sanha stifled her laughter with a hand when she heard the first room number.

Youngjae took Jaebum’s arm. “Come on hyung, let’s go find Yugyeom.”

“And then what?”

“We’ll. . . figure it out.”

“Reassuring.”

Sanha studied Jinyoung as the other two left. “Can you move between rooms, then?”

“Yeah. I can show you where 1704 is,” he offered.

“We know where 1704 is.” At her words, Jackson’s face went shades of white and pink embarrassment and he buried his face in the bag he’d brought, acting as though he was searching for something. She stifled another giggle. “But I’d love for you to come with.” She thought maybe his older way of speaking was getting to her, but it didn’t mean enough for her to care.

“Hah!” Jackson suddenly shouted, withdrawing his hand from the bag and waving something around. “Hah, I knew I still had it in there!” He stopped flailing it around as he slipped it on, keeping it still long enough for Sanha to see that it was an ebony ring. Immediately, his eyes landed on Jinyoung.

“Hello, I’m Jinyoung.” As though at a loss, the boy introduced himself again.

“Wang Jackson.”

“If there’s a demon we should get on with it,” Sanha said.

“I’m willing to overlook your crazy phrasing because there’s a demon?!”

“Talk and walk~!” she sang, tugging on his arm and inviting Jinyoung to come with, which he did, albeit with a bemused expression.

It didn’t take very long for Jinyoung and Sanha to explain everything, and it took even less time for them to get to room 1704. Jinyoung didn’t have any problems with the floor, since he wasn’t a physical form, but the other two had some minor difficulties.

Finally standing at the door, they looked awkwardly at each other for a couple seconds, before Jackson bowed gallantly, echoing the words he’d said their first time at the door. “Thrill seekers first.”

She rolled her eyes and shoved his shoulder, but pulled the door open and stepped through. It was a familiar scene. Nothing had changed since the last time she was in there, the time which would not be mentioned. Just like before there was a dark shadow on the balcony when she turned to look, although this time the doors were open.

“Mark!” Jinyoung called his attention. The figure turned and walked back inside, and his features became clear. Nobody said anything for a long minute, as Mark seemed surprised to see them. Unsurprisingly, it was Jackson who broke the silence.

“You’re quite handsome, Mark-ssi.”

Sanha hit herself in the forehead.

Mark blushed pink and looked down. “Ah- thank you.”

“Don’t mind him, he’s a little shit.” Sanha pushed Jackson to the side and stepped in front of them. “I’m Kim Sanha, and this is Wang Jackson.”

“Tuan Mark.”

“Nice to meet you.”

He paused, before turning slightly. “So you’re real then? Physical.”

“I would hope so. I was when I came in.” Sanha pinched herself. “I’m not even sure how I’d check that.”

“I haven’t seen anyone physically real in years.”

“So you knew you were intangible, then?”

He nodded. “BamBam- did something, I’m not sure what. He punched me out of my body.” As he spoke he made the motion with his arms, pushing away from him with his palm out in a way that looked like he was trying to win a splash fight in a pool.

“Punched you out of your body?” She recognized that.

“I know it doesn’t make much sense; I’ve been trying to make sense of it for years.” He blushed a bit.

“No it totally makes sense.”

Jackson gave her a sideways look. “It does?”

“Yeah, remember how I told you that the spirit’s the soul of a person, the energetic part? BamBam knocked the energetic part out of the physical somehow,” she explained.

“So if we find the physical part, then we’ll be tangible again?” Jinyoung asked.

“In theory.” She scribbled the hypothesis down in her notepad. “I’m not a hundred percent right now, but it’s our best bet, so we may as well test it.”

“I don’t know where my body is though, he hid it somewhere.” Mark frowned.

“Well he’s not going to make it easy,” Jackson mumbled.

“It probably can’t have gone far.” Sanha tapped her pencil eraser against her cheekbone. “With the energy required to keep up this kind of glamour, he can’t have moved them outside the building, and if he had someone would have found them already. Technically you guys are still missing, not confirmed dead, so they should still be in the building.”

“So-”

The door burst open, cutting off whatever Jinyoung was about to say. Youngjae stood in the doorway, breathing heavily. “We’ve got problems.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there's a lot of running, a little fighting, and too much finding
> 
> AKA the part where everything's a mess, not just my writing

It took all of two seconds for Sanha to be out the door and down the stairs as loud crashing noises echoed from the first floor. She wasn’t sure whose footsteps were following behind her but at this point it didn’t really matter. Her eyes were to the front, and as she came into the room she saw a bolt of semi translucent green energy hurtling through the air at a familiar face she didn’t place right away. Pulling on a bracelet of peridot, she threw herself into the fray in time to reflect the energy back at its sender, knocking him off his feet and throwing him through the opposite wall.

“Yikes.” She winced sympathetically, even though she’d recognized the boy as the one Jinyoung had called a demon. He kinda deserved it, but he still looked human, so it was hard to not feel a twinge of sympathy.

“Yikes is right.” Jackson glared between Sanha and the new hole in the wall. “What’ve I told you about running towards the danger?”

“Yeah yeah.” She rolled her eyes.

“Thanks for the save.” The boy in front of her looked slightly rattled, staring into the hole. “How’d you do that?”

“Peridot.” She held out her bracelet. “I charmed it last night. It reflects spells back at their senders. It’s quite useful.” He nodded, and she turned to Jaebum. “Oppa, did you find anything that lets you see spirits?”

He shook his head. “Not yet. I’m not sure what even grants that power.” She frowned, searching her own mental notes. “But we did figure one thing out.”

“Hit me.” She glanced at the hole to check if BamBam was up yet. He hadn’t reappeared, and she wondered if maybe she’d accidentally knocked him out.

“We can see the kids without needing items if we find their bodies.”

“Yeah, we figured that out as well. How’d you get there?”

“Well,” Jaebum started, “I made the mistake of searching around while Youngjae was talking, and there was a body in the closet.” Sanha flinched. “I thought it was a dead body at first, but turns out it wasn’t.”

“Wait, you found his body?”

“Yep.” Yugyeom beamed. “I’m _really_ enjoying being able to move stuff again.”

“He’s getting up!” Jinyoung warned from by the hole, sprinting back.

“Get ready.” Sanha held the arm with peridot on it in front of her. “Yugyeom-ssi, would you like some protection?”

“That’d be nice.” He didn’t look afraid, but his voice shook a little.

She immediately dug around for the other protective item she’d packed. “When’s your birthday?”

“November 17.”

“Perfect, here.” She thrust a bracelet at him as BamBam gained his feet, looking disoriented but uninjured. “Alexandrite, wear it on your left wrist for protection.”

“For a demon, he doesn’t bounce back very quickly,” Jackson commented.

“Are you gonna try to fistfight a demon?” Sanha asked, amusedly noting his fighting stance.

“I left my magic wand at home.”

The demon charged.

Despite Sanha’s teasing, Jackson got the first hit. He faked right and broke left in a way Troy Bolton would’ve been proud of and socked the other boy in the jaw. She hadn’t thought demons would have a physical body to hit, but with the testing complete and results reached she abandoned her previous plan and went for it.

The demon didn’t seem to be hurt by anything they were throwing at him. He was even _laughing_ , head thrown back and blue eyes glowing. He must’ve been casting some kind of spell, since despite their better numbers, they didn’t seem to be doing much. Distracted, it took her awhile to realize Mark was calling her. Once she had, she quickly dropped out, taking a quick breather. “What’s up?”

“I think I might know how to find my body.”

Her eyes lit up. “Well shit, let’s do that. _Jaebum oppa_!”

He showed seconds later. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I’m dropping out to help Mark while the demon’s distracted. Here.” She quickly pulled off the peridot bracelet and gave it to him. “Don’t lose that; it was _really_ expensive.”

“I won’t. You don’t die, okay? Jackson’ll kill me.”

“Scout’s honor.” She spoke the words in English with the salute. She’d done it so many times in the past he didn’t even need her to explain.

“Jinyoung!” Mark called as Jaebum dove back into the fray. The other spectral boy joined them as Mark lead the way up the stairs at a sprint.

“I realized,” he explained between huffs of breathing, “that Yugyeom had always stayed close to that room for no real reason, since the door was open and he never had a connection to it before. It never meant anything before, when I thought about it, but then his body turned out to have been in that room the whole time.”

“So he’s just been hiding them right next to you the whole time,” she gasped. “For a huge douche, he’s quite intelligent.”

She almost fell through the floor three times in her haste to get to 1704, but she made it to the door in one piece, which was a relief. Bursting back onto the scene for the third time in a short window, she glared around the room, calculating the best place to hide a body. A brief smile flicked across her face as she remembered the conversation she’d had with Jackson the first time she’d been in the room.

“Skeletons in the closet,” she mumbled, striding across the room to throw the door open.

Obviously, it wasn’t going to be that simple. They were up against a demon, or a malevolent spirit, or something, but either way he wasn’t stupid enough to put two pretty valuable things in the same spot. The closet was empty.

Mark only deflated slightly. “I knew it was too easy.” Sanha hummed, tapping her finger on her cheek as she squinted at the room.

“Both times I came in, you were at the balcony.” All eyes went to the location in question. “Any particular reason?”

“Not a conscious one.” The three of them moved to inspect the balcony. There wasn’t anything obvious on the balcony itself, what with the entire thing being the size of a closet. It was hard to hide anything there.

“Is it glamoured?” Jinyoung asked.

“Good question.” Sanha blinked. She hadn’t actually thought of that, that maybe the reason they hadn’t found it was another sustained glamour. BamBam had a lot of power at his command, evidently. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d gone the extra mile. Fidgeting with the ebony pendant, she scanned the balcony, rechecking the places the other two had already looked. “I’m not seeing- _oh fuck_ -!” She broke off and laughed breathlessly, placing one hand to her chest. “There it is. You were totally right.”

“Really?” Mark looking through it proved that it had been glamoured.

“Really. Right here.” She patted the head of the body which leaned against the wall behind the door, accidentally mussing its hair a little.

He hesitated. “You think I can get back in while it’s glamoured, or will the glamour block it?”

“One way to find out.” She gestured dramatically towards his body. Somewhat nervously, he walked over and stepped into the alcove where it was, closing his eyes. After a second of breathless waiting his expression relaxed into bliss, and after another his semi-transparent form faded away and the body’s eyes opened, and she knew he’d merged.

“That’s much better.” He sighed in relief, stretching his fingers out and playing with the balcony door for a second. Jinyoung watched him with a longing expression. Mark frowned as he returned his gaze to the rest of the balcony. “Where’d Jinyoung go?”

“He’s still here, I guess you just can’t see him now that you’re physical. How about we fix that?” Sanha chirped, making for the door. Just outside the threshold, the building shook, nearly throwing her into a hole in the floor. She barely managed to catch herself with the doorknob to 1701. Mark, still unused to having a physical form, was thrown to the floor just inside the room. Wood below them splintered into pieces, somewhere within earshot but out of sight. Everything quieted a second later, leaving no evidence of what had happened except three shaken teenagers.

“What was that?” Jinyoung’s face was white.

“We’re running out of time.” Mark pushed himself off the floor, gaining his feet again.

“Make sure to test the floor.” Sanha kept her gaze on her own feet as she started moving again. “I’m not sure how much heavier you are than me.”

They didn’t have any other incidents and managed to make it down to the hallway Jinyoung had been in without further trouble. They weren’t sure if the battle downstairs was still raging or what had happened. Sanha hoped that the others had been able to contain BamBam, but he was a demon with immense powers. She had no idea.

“Here.” Jinyoung stopped at the end of the hallway, eyes glazed as he reached for a feeling inside himself. Sanha stared out the window at the end, remembering the view. An idea hit her, and she grumbled in the back of her throat.

“I swear to god, if I’m right,” she mumbled, kneeling on the windowsill, her hands gripping one side for dear life. They were only on the second floor, but the fall could probably break her bones, and maybe her neck if she was especially unlucky. Or lucky, depending on how you looked at it. Taking a breath in and praying she was wrong, she looked down.

And cursed, because somehow the body had been pitched out the window and onto the decorative carvings on the side of the building, because _of course_ it had. She wasn’t sure if it had just happened or if the damn thing had been there the whole time, but either way it was there now, and they had to find a way to get it to a safer place.

“At least we found it?” Mark said questioningly as he leaned out next to her. Jinyoung didn’t pause, sliding out the window and down to the ledge where the body had gotten caught. After a few seconds he’d merged with his physical half and his eyes opened again.

“So how’re we going to play this?” Sanha fiddled with her sleeves as she tried to brainstorm.

“How long are your arms?”

Mark ended up holding her waist while she pulled Jinyoung up; an awkward position if there ever was one, but at least nobody was hanging off the side of a building anymore. The two boys took a quick second to get used to being physical entities again.

“It’s in pretty good condition, considering it was thrown out a window,” Jinyoung noted, shaking his arms around.

“A body can’t be damaged if it doesn’t have the original spirit in it,” Sanha said offhandedly.

“Good.”

She couldn’t hear any sounds of a fight as they approached the room where they’d left everyone, which could mean two things, and only one of them was anything good: Either they’d won, or BamBam had.

It turned out to be neither. They pushed the door open, only to find that nobody was in the room. A new, car-sized hole had been created in one of the walls. Sanha flinched, wondering what on earth could’ve made a hole that size and shape.

“That must’ve been what we heard upstairs,” Mark said softly.

At a loss for what else to do, they went through the hole. It lead into a room Sanha recognized as the one which she’d snagged the book from on her first time through. She wandered over to the desk.

“I hear them now.” Jinyoung walked over to the door at the opposite side and carefully eased it open. Mark joined him, and both peered out, checking for BamBam, she assumed.

“Everyone’s outside.” Mark turned back. “Sanha, come on.”

“Coming.” She zipped up her bag and slung it over her shoulder, following behind the older boys as they slipped out the door. She found herself in the entryway, but didn’t have time to pause to get her bearings. As they walked with quiet feet across the tile, a haunting voice echoed through the broken building.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are~” It was unmistakably BamBam’s voice, although why he was singing a taunt in English that kids would during a game of hide and seek was beyond Sanha. She didn’t want to stick around to find out, and apparently the other two shared that sentiment. Abandoning stealth in favor of speed, they sprinted for the half opened door.

Sanha almost knocked Jaebum over as she tripped over the rough stone just outside the dorm building. Thankfully, he managed to keep them both on their feet. His eyes widened in relief when he realized it was her, and before she knew it he’d wrapped her in a hug. Frozen in shock, it took her a second to hug back.

“God, I was so worried,” he mumbled into the top of her head.

“Well now you can stop that,” she teased lightly as they pulled apart. She scanned the gathered assembly, a sudden frown creasing her forehead. “Where’s Jackson oppa?”  
Jaebum winced. “About that. . .”

“He’s mine.” BamBam’s voice boomed over the area. In any other circumstance, the tone and pitch wouldn’t be menacing, but in the absence of light, anything could be terrifying. “And unless you give me back what’s mine, you won’t see him again.”

Sanha turned, making eye contact with the boy standing just inside the door. “Yeah? And what’s that?”

He made a sweeping gesture with his arm, indicating the three boys standing in a huddle, who only moved closer together. He didn’t bother vocally indicating what he wanted, but the message was loud and clear.

Sanha snorted. “I don’t know if you know this, but you can’t legally own a person. They abolished that like, forty years ago or something.”

BamBam’s eyes glowed menacingly. “Mine or not, it makes no difference. I want them back, and I’ll be holding onto your friend until I have all three of them. Understood?”

“Understood,” Sanha chirped innocently, before hiding her mouth and mumbling under her breath, “you big fuckin douche.” Jaebum snorted. She wasn’t sure if BamBam heard, but she didn’t care much either. “We’ll have to think on that. Give us a day or seven.”

“Twenty six hours. If they’re not back here in twenty six hours, forget seeing your friend ever again,” the demon announced, before swinging the dorm doors shut behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> always use protection kids. especially when dealing with demons.


	6. Chapter 6

“What’s stopping him from just coming after what he wants?” Youngjae wondered aloud as they walked back to the rest of campus.

“The glamour,” Jinyoung answered, paying close attention to his footing. “He can’t sustain it if he gets too far away from the building.”

“He whines about it constantly,” Mark added.

“So what’s our plan?” Jaebum asked.

“Get some more of those magic items you guys have and go back.” Yugyeom glared at the ground as he spoke. “We can’t leave your friend behind.”

“Oh, here’s your bracelet back,” Jaebum remembered, pulling the peridot off his wrist and holding it out to her. “Thanks for. . . Sanha are you okay?”

“Hmm?” She looked up, eyes fuzzy. “Oh, yeah. Thank you.” She slid the bracelet on her wrist and returned her gaze to the ground.

“Nuna, we’re going to get him back,” Youngjae said softly.

“I know. I’m just. . . strategizing.” Her hand moved to rub the ebony pendent. She’d almost said ‘worried’. “What happened while we were upstairs?”

The semi-diversion worked. “Everything was going fine, and then he suddenly went nuts.” Youngjae waved his hands as though to demonstrate, and Sanha nodded, recognizing the instance as the loud noises that had rocked the building just after finding Mark’s body. “He broke through the wall, and everything went downhill.”

“How so?”

“He put up a glamour, and we didn’t have enough charms for everyone to see around it.” Jaebum took his flower crown in his hands as he spoke, turning it around and around. “So we lost some help there. We decided maybe it would be better to take the fight outside, so we tried, but he nabbed Jackson and vanished.”

“You’ll be glad to know he about broke the demon’s nose before he went, though,” Youngjae added. The boys snickered a little, probably imagining the look on the demon’s face. Sanha noticed Yugyeom laughed a little too loud, and wondered if maybe he blamed himself. She knew that feeling.

“Probably he won’t even need our help,” Jaebum reassured her.

“Yeah, for sure.” She scrambled through the fence before he could mention her tone.

They kept walking. As it turned out, fifty years held more than a few technological advancements, meaning they were explaining something they’d taken for granted with every step. Eventually, they made it back to their own building. Sanha paused at the front with her hand on the knob.

“Whose dorm?”

“Yours.”

And that was how Sanha found herself sitting awake, researching online in her bed, as they formed an impromptu sleepover in her living room.

The time on her computer read eleven pm, meaning they’d only been in the building for a couple of hours. The whole adventure felt like it had taken much longer than it actually had, so much so that she almost wondered if time was elongated in the building. Then she realized that it was functionally just a building draped in a bedsheet and that it was a stupid thought.

The only sound was the steady breathing of the boys in the next room and her pencil scribbling notes. She figured Jackson wouldn’t mind if she gave away his bed for the night, so the older of the three had gotten it. And honestly, even if he did mind, he wasn’t exactly in a place to do anything about it. That was a semi morbid thought, but it was almost midnight. Stuff like that tended to happen.

She slid her shoes on, careful to not make noise and wake up the boys in the other room. They were down to twenty five hours; an arbitrary seeming number until you realized that it meant their deadline was midnight the next day. She wasn’t sure why he didn’t just say it outright, but maybe twenty six hours made it more dramatic, more pressing. The guy was a dick, but he did have a rather stylish flair.

Her keys clinked together happily as she grabbed them off the table next to the door, and she made a face at them. This was no time to be cheerful; she was on a mission! She glanced behind her to check if she’d woken any of the boys, and her heart sank a little as she saw one of their shapes moving around.

“Sanha?” Yugyeom’s sleepy voice reached her ears. “What are you doing?”

“Going shopping,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

“Can’t.” She saw him sit up, and he joined her at the door, slipping his own shoes back on. “I’ll go with you.”

She debated the merits of allowing him along for a second. She wanted to be alone, but on the other hand it would be easier to find the items with help, and besides, they’d lose their shit if they woke up and she was the only one gone. That and Yugyeom, despite looking two years younger than she was, was probably fifty years her senior, maybe more.

She shrugged. “I’m going to be hitting up antique stores.”

“Sounds fun.”

And that was that.

“So this one’s made of opal, in 1902.” Yugyeom read the information off the card in front of a ring. “The band is fake gold, apparently it belonged to the wife of some guy called Roosevelt.” His nose wrinkled as he struggled over the pronunciation of the foreign name.

“I think that’s a bunch of bull, but at least it’s opal.” Sanha took the card and checked the price. “That’s not bad.” She got the attention of the guy behind the counter, and a few minutes later they walked out with the ring on her finger. She apparently knew her metals better than he did, because the band was definitely real gold. They’d gotten a real steal with that pricing.

“So you and Jackson are pretty close, then?”

“Yeah.” She fidgeted with the ring. “It’s wild, when you really think about it. I mean, we only met first year at school, and now, you know.” She pulled her hand away from the ring and laughed. “I mean now we’re wandering abandoned buildings and other crazy dangerous stuff.”

“Are you dating?”

She blushed wildly and shook her head. “Oh _hell_ no, no no no- he’s more like a weird older brother than anything.”

“Okay.” He laughed, a bit sheepishly. “I just wondered, because you guys share a room. How’d you manage that, if you’re not dating?”

She coughed. “They made a little _mistake_ , in the system. And we just never bothered to correct them.” She stopped being cryptic and grinned. “I _may_ have hacked it.”

“How the heck did you do that?”

“Easy, really. The superintendent _might’ve_ forgotten to change his computer password so _theoretically_ , I snuck into his office while his secretary was busy with a student who _probably_ wasn’t in on it and _definitely_ just had some questions about his schedule, _possibly_ pulled up the room assignments and _may_ have changed a couple names.”

“Computer?” By this point Yugyeom was used to hearing words he didn’t recognize. She laughed and explained the concept as they headed for another store.

“I’ve gone on long enough. Tell me something about yourself.” Their eyes met over the glass display case they were searching. Sanha wasn’t sure if she’d crossed a line, with the look in his eyes, but he didn’t say no.

“Well,” he started. “I’m Kim Yugyeom.” He bit his lip, considering. She gave him time and picked up a card, scanning the materials list for a pair of teal earrings. He laughed nervously. “I don’t know. I’m 18, physically?” She hummed lightly. Her estimation had been pretty close to spot on. She was older than him. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to ask questions then, and you can find something off that?”

“That’d be nice.”

She tilted her head as she thought. “What was your best friend like?”

He made an ah noise, and she flagged down the shopkeeper while he gathered his thoughts.

“He was sweet,” he finally said. “When I first met him he was kind of cutesy and shy, but he got more confident. He could be a bit flirtatious sometimes, but it was almost a joke most of the time. Your friend Jackson kind of reminds me of him, a little bit.” She nodded, not saying anything as she paid the cashier. She’d learned over her years of being nosy that oftentimes people would add something if you waited. “We were roommates. I only met him because of school, you know? Because he was from Thailand. He speaks three languages fluently, can you believe it?”

“That’s wild,” she said in awe, scooping the earrings off the counter. “Which three?”

“Thai, Korean, and English.” Yugyeom stared into nothing, a slight smile on his face. “He told me he wanted to learn Chinese next, because Mark hyung spoke it sometimes.”

Sanha slipped the earrings into a plastic bag and tucked it into her pocket. He didn’t say anything else. “Next question?”

“Next question,” he confirmed, one hand rubbing the back of his neck.

She considered for a second. “Just as a housekeeping thing, should I call you oppa? Because physically you’re younger than I am, but technically. . .”

He blushed. “I- wouldn’t mind if you did.”

She nodded. Even after living in Korea for a few years, the usage of those damn honorifics threw her off. It was all subjective social knowledge that wasn’t something they could teach a class on, and she still didn’t have a handle on it. “I’ll keep it to a minimum in public, since physically you’re younger than me, if that’s alright with you. You know, at the risk of looking like a crazy foreigner.”

“Yeah, that- that’s fine.”

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” She turned away from the skull sculpture on the shelf to look at him, but he looked away before she made eye contact.

“No, it’s okay.”

“So, what was your favorite after school hobby?”

~~ ~~ ~~

Two minutes.

“ _Oh no, I’m not tired. I can stay up and help you_ ,” he’d said. Two minutes and the poor boy was out like a light. She covered him with a blanket as she left, placing a pillow under his head so his neck wouldn’t get stiff. He was so sweet, so eager to help. He understood the pain of losing a friend, but this was something she was doing on her own.  
She trekked across the overgrown paths, shivering slightly as a breeze blew through the area. She hadn’t wanted to risk waking Yugyeom or tipping him off to what she was doing, so she hadn’t changed out of her pajamas. Now she was regretting that decision. They were a little light for this.

She stopped in front of the dorm building, glaring tiredly at it as it towered overhead. “So, we meet again,” she mumbled, before pushing onward.

Sanha wasn’t sure if BamBam had something set up by the door that would alert him to anyone entering, so she made sure to be ready for an attack as she pushed the door open. After a few breathless seconds, she continued onwards.

She knew Jackson would flip his shit once she showed up, but this was something she had to do alone. There was no way she would risk losing any of the kids back to the demon, and she wouldn’t dream of putting Youngjae or Jaebum in danger. Besides, it was a stealth mission. No, this was something she had to do on her own.

Partners were all well and good, but sometimes it was better to fly solo.

She spun the peridot bracelet around her wrist as she tested each stair, making sure the steps wouldn’t creak before putting her full weight on them. Jinyoung had said BamBam tended to hang around the third floor, so that was exactly where she was headed.

A low thump in the distance froze her for a full minute. It could’ve been anything, the floor settling, an animal like a squirrel that had made its nest, a piece of the building pulling free and dropping to the floor, hell it could’ve been Jackson, the very thing she’d come to find, but her heart insisted it was BamBam, pacing the floor as he waited for the return of his victims.

After no sounds followed, she continued up the stairs to the third floor and stayed low as she surveyed the hallway. Most of the doors were closed, except four. One was at the end of the hall, two were across from each other in the middle, and the other was all but right next to her.

Obviously the correct one would be none of the open doors, but it was a bit too dangerous to check those first, so the opened ones would have to do until she was ready for open conflict. That decided, she inched forward to try the first room.

It was her personal belief that nothing good is ever in the first option tried, and that continued to hold up. The first room was empty of everything except foliage, which only served to muffle her footsteps further. She appreciated that.

The middle rooms would be more difficult to check. Since they were across from each other, if she tried to check one room then anyone in the other would be able to see her. She ended up skipping those, resolving to come back. She also almost gave herself a heart attack while sneaking past them, but nothing happened so she counted herself lucky and kept going.

The room at the end didn’t have anything in it either, but the investigation wasn’t a total loss. For one, she had a second to breathe, feeling less exposed than when she had been in the hallway. For another, she heard something.

It wasn’t like the music she’d heard with Jinyoung. This was definitely a physical sound, but she couldn’t place what it was or what direction it was coming from. It took five minutes too long for her to pick a direction and just walk that way.

After playing the world’s most frustrating game of Warmer / Colder, she found herself standing outside one of the closed doors, just down the hall from the middle two. That didn’t bode well, but she’d never had much of a self preservation instinct when it came to curiosity. She forced herself to turn the knob and slowly push the door open.

Nothing.

There was nothing of interest in the room.

She let out a disappointed breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Because of course there’d be nothing. She wasn’t trying to conduct an investigation or anything. Wasn’t like she wanted to find something.

In the next second, all her passive aggressive thoughts vanished as someone’s breathing echoed hers. Her fight or flight instincts broke and she ended up freezing like a deer in headlights. The ragged sounds continued even after she had most definitely stopped breathing. Her eyes tracked to sound to the side of the room, and she noticed tracks in the dust next to a bookcase. Stepping carefully, she moved over to it, risking a couple breaths before she passed out entirely. It’d been moved a little ways to the right, a couple feet, if she had to estimate.

Behind the bookcase was a door.

Trying to get through or to the door looked like a horrible, horrible idea. Actively searching for someone who was crying never turned out okay in any work even slightly related to the horror genre, and usually the protagonist ended up dead. But this wasn’t a horror film. At least, that’s what she told herself to excuse the incredibly dumb thing she was about to do.

She wasn’t sure she trusted herself to move the bookcase out of the way quietly, but she knew the crying was coming from behind that door. Why else would the bookcase have been moved? So, gritting her teeth and bracing herself, she pushed on the side.

It moved with surprising ease, sliding across the floor with barely a sound. She wasn’t sure what kind of good deed she’d done to get this kind of good karma, but either way she wasn’t complaining. She thanked her lucky stars and grabbed the knob, swinging the door open before her luck (or her nerve) ran out.

Curled in a ball on the floor was BamBam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> those are all the chapters that are up on tumblr! updates are Wednesday and Saturday (if I remember). They'll go up on tumblr regardless so if it's not here, check there (user is the same; ismycapsloudenoughforyou)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the mom instinct rears its ugly head
> 
> AKA Sanha is an idiot with no regard for her own personal health

Sanha almost slammed the door, almost turned tail and ran for it, almost lashed out. Apparently she needed to get her fight or flight instinct fixed, because she didn’t do anything except stare.

He’d noticed that the door was open, but all he’d done was turn away from her, shoulders shaking. Questions swirled through her head, but the only one that seemed applicable was “What the fuck?” and she accidentally said it in English. Apparently he understood, because his broken breathing changed to apologies.

This was _so_ above her pay grade.

How long she stood there, she had no idea; she wasn’t timing it. She didn’t know what to do. Should she close the door and go on with her mission? She didn’t. She’d probably regret it, but she crouched down, finding a spot next to him and taking a page out of her mother’s book, rubbing circles on his back with her hand. It’d always calmed her down.

BamBam uncurled after what felt like longer than it probably was, swiping a sleeve across his face. He almost seemed scared to look at her. She wasn’t sure if now was when the conversation started. She felt like Poe Dameron, “ _So who talks first, you talk first? I talk first?_ ” except the situation was completely different.

He pulled in a shaky breath, and her scrambling brain pulled back. “Why?”

“That’s not very specific.” The words dropped from her lips almost without her knowledge. Apparently it was instinct to treat everyone like Jackson, when she got nervous, and add a little teasing.

“Why are you helping me?” He turned slightly, still not quite facing her.

She didn’t know the answer herself. “Empathy?” The opal ring they’d picked up the hour before enhanced that. Maybe that was her issue. And now she’d die because of it. _Sanha, you idiot_. She didn’t know what to say. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine now.” She got to her feet and offered him a hand up. With the startled look he gave her, you’d think she was handing him the keys to her house. After a second of hesitation, he took it.

“Kay, but now you have to give me a five minute head start before you kill me,” she joked, fully expecting to not see the sunrise.

To her surprise, BamBam sighed and stared at the floor again. “That’s the other guy’s job.”

He’d hit her weakness. Her interest was piqued. She was already dead at this point; she might as well go out doing what she loved. “Other guy?”

“You wouldn’t believe it.”

“Maybe not, but I’ve got a powerpoint presentation all about why you should tell me anyway. Title is _You Never Know Until You Try_.” He snorted.

“Okay fine.” He still didn’t look at her. “There’s another spirit, I guess that the girl summoned to help her. He stole my body with me still in it and he’s been using it.” He finally met her eyes. “I’m sorry about your friend, by the way.”

She surveyed him, a couple quick once-overs, and nodded. “I believe you.”

That obviously shocked him. “You’re not messing with me, are you?”

“Nope.” There’d been a change of plans. Forget the initial mission, she had the sneaking suspicion it wouldn’t make sense to continue with it anymore. She shook her head. “We need to leave.” Ignoring the confused look on his face, she moved to the door.

If Sanha had thought the other three were bad at moving their bodies, BamBam was worse. It was no fault of his own, of course. He hadn’t even had the limited freedom the other kids had as semi-free roaming spirits. He probably hadn’t moved on his own in fifty years. That didn’t change the fact that he was walking like a baby giraffe, but it was cute.

They only made it to the entryway.

“Sanha!”

She cringed, hearing Jackson’s voice calling out, and turned around reluctantly.

“Get away from him, he’s dangerous; you know that!” Jackson came closer, and she backed away, instinctively moving between him and BamBam. The hurt expression on his face broke her heart, but she wasn’t sure yet.

“Yeah well, you know me and running towards danger,” she mumbled, taking a few steps back.

“This is different now, you know this. He could kill you!”

He wouldn’t be acting this way. He never had before. Jackson would’ve noticed her actions, would’ve asked what she knew that he didn’t, would’ve done anything else but this. She slipped her phone out of her pocket and lit up the screen.

His eyes were blue.

“BamBam, get out of the building.” She kept her voice light and didn’t look away.

“I’m not going to just-”

“ _BamBam_ ,” she repeated, “ _get out of the building_.”

He didn’t argue that time. She knew he hadn’t left, either, but she heard him move towards the door. She just hoped it was enough.

“Why do you trust him more than me?” Jackson’s voice asked. “Come on, I’m your best friend.”

“No; Jackson’s my best friend.” She stashed her phone back in her pocket, preparing herself. “You’re just some blue eyed dickhole.”

“They’re just contacts!”

She had to chuckle, even though she was 110% terrified. “Checkmate, fucker. Jackson oppa hates contacts. He’s scared of them getting stuck behind his eye.”

His face darkened and he rushed forward, but she was already running. She didn’t bother with vocal instructions and grabbed BamBam’s arm, pulling him along behind her. They didn’t stop running until they were through the fence, and then they just stopped there, catching their breath. Sanha slumped against the fence. BamBam just dropped.

“How’d you know?” BamBam asked after a while.

“How’d I know what?”

“Any of it.” He rolled onto his back. “That Jackson was possessed, and that I wasn’t.”

“Easy.” She smiled. “Your eyes were blue earlier, like, aggressively blue. And then his eyes were blue in the entryway.”

“You based all of that on eyes?” He squinted at her. “You couldn’t have known what color my eyes were supposed to be.”

“Well the eyes worked for Jackson oppa. And they were only what sealed it for me with you, I had some other bits.” She bounced a little on the chain link fence, letting it rock her a little. “Like how bodies are functionally invincible when they’re not controlled by their matching spirit. A five on one fistfight shouldn’t end in the one winning. I’ll admit,” she added as an afterthought. “I didn’t really think about what it all meant until I saw you in the closet.”

“Thank you again for that.” He bowed his head a little, getting up again.

“Don’t mention it.” She flashed a cheeky peace sign, hoping to get him a little more comfortable. “It’s all in the line of duty.”

He laughed a little as they started walking. “What duty?”

“Nosing into every corner of people’s lives. That’s what my mom likes to say, anyway. My business is everyone else’s business.”

“You should print that on a business card and start a private eye service.”

Her eyes lit up. “That doesn’t sound half bad.”

He grinned at the expression of childlike glee on her face. The conversation fell away for a few steps, but it picked back up as Sanha pushed the door to her own dorm building open. “How are we going to break it to everyone else?”

“I’ll make a powerpoint and wake everyone up in the dead of night to show them.” She rubbed her hands together. “It’s brilliant! The neighbors will hate me, the use of modern technology will confuse most of the kids, and the other two will probably actually kill me. There’s no way the plan can go wrong.”

“I thought you said two of them would kill you.”

“At this point I’m not sure I’m entirely opposed. I’m living on borrowed time~!” she sang, taking long fluid waltzing steps down the hall. He shook his head at her antics and trailed along behind.

Luckily for them, the kids crashed in Sanha’s dorm were out for the count. She didn’t have to explain that second. Her phone read 3:42 am and it had been a week which had been more than eventful.

“Go ahead and crash in the room down the hall and to the right, second door,” she directed him. “Just don’t go rooting around in the stuff, okay?”

“We still don’t know what we’re doing about this,” he whispered back, indicating himself.

“I’ll deal with it when I’m lucid.” She fought back a monster yawn as she spoke. “I haven’t slept in almost 24 hours and I’ve got to figure out how to exorcise my best friend by midnight today. I’ll burn that bridge when I get to it, okay?” She wasn’t sure when she’d slipped into English, but either way the malapropism sounded better in her native tongue.

“I thought it was ‘cross that bridge’.” He frowned in confusion, also speaking English.

“There’s a whole grammar thing involved that I’ll tell you about in a couple of hours if you still want to know.”

“I’ll hold you to that.”

“Don’t worry, I love talking people’s ears off with fun tidbits. Now go to bed.”

“Sure thing mom.”

~~ ~~ ~~

Being a lying piece of trash, Sanha didn’t actually get to sleep for another hour as she searched up how to properly exorcise a person. After coming up with nothing, she’d accidentally fallen asleep out of frustration. Needless to say, she was a bit disgruntled when she woke up with her face buried in the arm of the couch.

“Took you long enough,” Jaebum teased when he saw her sit up.

“You sleep like a rock, noona.” Youngjae took his chance and ran away with it.

“Yeah well you try researching for hours.” She covered her mouth as she yawned, setting her laptop to the side before it slid off the couch. She was honestly surprised it hadn’t yet. “And then doing work in the field too.”

“That sounds dangerous,” Mark noted. The boys were all sat on the floor in a circle around the couch. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, but it didn’t matter.

“Danger is my middle name,” she mumbled in English, moving into the kitchen space to grab a breakfast bar and check the time. She calculated she’d slept for a measly 4 hours. That was more than enough to get her through the day.

Probably.

“We just went antiques shopping.” Yugyeom jumped in. “It wasn’t dangerous.”

She bobbed her head around, singing “field trip” under her breath as she grabbed a breakfast bar.

“What time did you get back?” Jaebum continued.

Yugyeom shrugged. “Around one, I think?”

“Sanha, what did you do?”

She turned around to find Jaebum staring at her. “What d’you mean what did I do?”

“Jackson told me you only get dancey when you didn’t get sleep. What time did you get to bed?”

She shrugged. “Four or five.”

All the sane individuals in the room erupted. She made vigorous shushing noises at them. “Shut the hell up, you’ll wake the kid!”

“We’re all awake.” Jinyoung glanced around the circle.

“Oh yeah.” She hummed, closing the cabinet door. “I may have gone on a bit of a field trip and picked up a straggler.”

“She gets dramatic when she’s tired,” Youngjae stage whispered to the group. She made a face at him and took her spot on the couch again.

“I got back from antiques shopping with Yugyeom and realized that it was dumb to go in guns blazing again.” She figured it would be better to get her motivation out of the way first. “Because five on one somehow wasn’t enough, and I doubt seven on one would be enough either. We needed a new plan, and my best idea was stealth.”

“ _You went back on your own?!_ ”

“I know, it was dumb, but it wasn’t the worst thing ever.”

Jaebum slapped his forehead. “This is the exact opposite thing Jackson would have wanted!”

“As it turns out, Jackson oppa makes up 90% of my impulse control.” She ignored his mutter of ‘that’s terrifying’ in favor of finishing her story. “And anyway, some good came out of it. I got some info.”

“Info like what?” Jinyoung asked.

More awake, she got down to business, opening the wrapper on her breakfast bar. “We can’t beat this guy by kicking the crap out of him. It won’t work. We have to get him out of the body.”

“Sanha we’re missing pieces.” Jaebum’s words were muffled by the hands he still had on his face, but she recognized his meaning.

“Oh shit, right, sorry.” Sometimes she got so caught up in the investigation she’d forget that the people she was working with didn’t have all the bits. “So as it turns out, we’re not up against a demon, it’s actually a spirit. See, it wasn’t actually BamBam in control; that’s why we couldn’t hurt him.” She explained how she’d gotten to the conclusion again and was relieved when nobody questioned her on it.

“So now we have to get the spirit out of BamBam when we get Jackson?” Yugyeom sounded more excited than all of them at the news.

“Actually no. That there’s a bit of a story, but I actually got BamBam last night. ‘s wild how that works.” She watched as the kid’s face lit up. Ah. Her half baked hypothesis was correct. BamBam was the kid’s best friend. “Let the poor kid sleep though; he’s had a rough night.”

“Is the spirit in Jackson, then?” Mark asked.

“Good guess. Yeah, that’s what we’re working with right now. It’s going to be a little more difficult to get him back than I thought.”

“You already did research, didn’t you?” Youngjae knew her well enough to know that much.

“You bet. Exorcisms are out.” She picked up her notepad and took a bite out of her breakfast bar finally. She covered her mouth with one hand as she kept talking. “They’re just for demons; it’s all about invoking Christ and God and the Lord’s prayer and shit. That’s not going to work for us.” She paused. “As a side note, don’t look up exorcisms at four in the morning. Spooky shit, that.”

“So are we just researching how to get spirits out of bodies now?” Mark’s fingers danced around slightly anxiously.

“Yeah. There’s got to be a way to do it, since this dickbag managed to do it to you three. We just need to find it.”

“Language,” Jinyoung mumbled.

“Sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kinda short. that's just kinda how it turned out, oops. oh well. see you wednesday?


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which almost everything is revealed (finally)
> 
> AKA an overemotional information dump

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoops, meant to put this one up wednesday. haha. . . it's friday. oh well. another update tomorrow if i remember

The reunion between Yugyeom and BamBam was an emotional one. Emotional enough that Sanha was able to stay awake, a feat for sure. She didn’t want to use caffeine and so had been nodding off for awhile. They got back to researching for a little bit, but Jinyoung told her to go the fuck to bed, without using those exact words, after she almost fell off the arm of the couch. She went to her bedroom to appease him, because she knew she’d kinda been stressing his mom instinct out, but she didn’t intend to sleep.

Of course, intents don’t mean anything, so she ended up accidentally taking a quick power nap, but after that she was back in the game.

The bag she’d carried with her to the building just the day before still hung on her bedpost. She grabbed it now and pulled a stack of pictures out of it. She’d managed to nick them from the desk that had had the book in it just before leaving the building. Apparently they’d been glamoured the first time she’d been in that room, because she hadn’t noticed them, and old pictures tended to be something she noticed.

The only reasons she held onto them were kind of insane. The first was because they looked important, depicting the missing kids in various situations, and the second was because she still had the broken picture frames and was more than eager to gain some knowledge and tie up a couple loose ends. What better way than to experience everything firsthand?

She started with one picture. The ‘recipe’ she was using could be used for multiple, for a more coherent storytelling process, but one was a good start. She didn’t want to get pulled in for multiple and get royally screwed over because she’d messed up the spell.

The recipe told her to slide the pictures she wanted to look through into a broken picture frame and stare at them while focusing on what she wanted to know. The picture she’d chosen was one of Yugyeom and the missing girlfriend. Nobody’d been able to tell her what happened to the other girl, and she desperately wanted to know. Nevertheless, she didn’t think that would be explained with this picture, since the date on the back was a month or two before the fake explosion, so she focused on her desire to know their relation. The colors swirled around her, her vision tunneled-

And then she was in.

 

_It wasn’t the scene from the picture. That was the first thing she noticed. She thought for a second she’d screwed up, but then she saw the girlfriend on the floor, crouching next to a poorly drawn summoning sigil. Floating above the middle was a vague, light colored shape that Sanha couldn’t quite make out. The only thing she could really see was its eyes, a vivid blue._

_“Why did you call me?” Contrary to the deep, booming voice Sanha was expecting from such a huge douche, the voice was much higher pitched, although still masculine. It almost wasn’t intimidating, if she didn’t know what he would do later._

_“I want to get back at my ex, and his stupid friend.” The girlfriend stood._

_“I can help with that, no charge,” the spirit said cooly. “I know what it’s like to get heartbroken.” He extended a hand._

_The girl looked stunned. “No charge? But I thought. . .”_

_“If you want, I can charge for it.”_

_“No no, this is fine.” She shook her head. “It wasn’t what I was expecting is all.”_

_“Do we have a deal? I’ll help you get back at your ex and his friends for nothing in return.” The spirit reiterated the terms in simpler words, and even Sanha had to admit that it sounded pretty good. Once the girl shook his hand, the terms would be set; no going back for either party._

_“Deal.” The ex-girlfriend shook his hand eagerly._

_“Perfect.” The spirit smiled in a way that made Sanha shiver. “I’ll have to find a physical form in order to help with anything.”_

_“Oh yeah.” She nodded. “And I was thinking we’d do something simple, yet evil. Like making all of their shirts a size too small, or making them step in a disproportionate amount of puddles and get their socks all wet all the time.”_

_“Of course.”_

_Sanha expected the photo to release her, but it whisked her to another scene, and she realized that she hadn’t asked it the origins of the spirit, she’d asked the relationship between Yugyeom and the girlfriend. As she watched, the spirit slid up behind the boy as he sat in his desk chair, working on homework. In the next second, the spirit slipped into the boy’s body. He gasped, slumping forward for a second, before straightening back up. He examined his hands with a self satisfied smirk, before picking up the pencil and continuing to work._

 

The picture released her with more questions than before. How did the revenge plan go from wet socks and shirt sizes to stealing his physical form and the forms of his classmates? The spirit didn’t ask for payment, so what was his motivation in working for free? Why did he continue to do this, after not even BamBam knew where the girlfriend was? Why was the spirit in Yugyeom’s body?

The spell had worked, at least. She picked a few more pictures and placed them in another frame, focusing on what she wanted to know. Again, the color around her swirled and her vision tunneled into a new scene.

 

_“We’ve got everything we need.” Yugyeom and the girlfriend were seated on the floor of what Sanha assumed was her dormitory. “There’s nothing to do now except wait until the dance.”_

_“Great.” The girlfriend leaned against the couch with a contented sigh. “I can’t wait to see how upset they’ll get.” She glanced over at her partner in crime. “It’s still so amazing how you managed to convince everyone here that you’ve been a student for a long time.”_

_“Party tricks.” The spirit waved Yugyeom’s arm dismissively._

_“You’ll have to teach me sometime.” She stood up. “Anyway, you should probably go. Big day tomorrow!”_

_“I’m not worried.”_

_“I know you aren’t. Thanks again for helping me.”_

_Sanha moved with the spirit as he headed for Yugyeom’s dormitory. So the girlfriend had no idea that Yugyeom was her classmate before she summoned the spirit. Sanha wasn’t surprised, she didn’t know most of the people in her own dorm building, but that explained why she still held him in such high regard. She didn’t know he was a body snatching asshole._

_She watched as the spirit walked down a hallway that looked strikingly familiar. She wasn’t sure if that was because she’d wandered it during her time in the abandoned building or during her time at her own, similarly constructed building, but either way she didn’t have time to focus on it. The spirit opened the door and stepped inside._

_“Yugyeom?” She recognized BamBam’s voice immediately._

_“Hello.”_

_“Where’ve you been?” The other boy came into view._

_“Out and around.” Yugyeom shrugged, heading towards a room to the side._

_“Gyeomie, can we talk?”_

_Both Sanha and the spirit froze, although for different reasons. The spirit turned back around, trying to make up for his lapse. “What’s on your mind?”_

_BamBam seemed nervous. “You’ve been acting off,” he finally said. “You go out all the time, and you always seem like you’re pushing me away. Is everything okay?”_

_“Yeah, everything’s fine.”_

_That was the least convincing inflection Sanha had ever heard in a sentence, and BamBam noticed it too. “You can tell me what’s wrong, I won’t be mad. Are you dating Jinyoung hyung’s ex? Is that what you’re nervous about? I’ve seen you hanging out with her.” Sanha noticed the spirit tensing. “I’m not going to judge you. Please just talk to me. You’re not acting like yourself.”_

_The spirit sprang forward, his hand latching on BamBam’s shoulder as he slammed the other boy against the wall. Fear filled the boy’s expression as he stared into the blank face of his best friend. Without a word, the spirit spun the other boy around and shoved him into a closet just to the left, slamming the door and holding it shut with his foot as he pulled the bookcase next to it in front of the door. BamBam pounded on it._

_“Yugyeom, this isn’t funny! Open the door!”_

_The spirit gave the door a long look before turning around and walking out of the dorm._

_She barely had time to process before the scene changed again. Yugyeom and the girlfriend stood outside 1704, Mark and Jinyoung’s shared dormitory. She looked upset, while Yugyeom just looked blank. The door to the dorm was ajar, and through it she could see both Mark and Jinyoung lying on the floor, unmoving._

_“I told you I just wanted to mess with them a little bit!” the girlfriend shouted. “Not kill them!”_

_“They’re not dead.” Sanha shivered. She didn’t like hearing Yugyeom’s voice like this. “I just removed their spirits. You’ll be able to mess with them for all eternity.”_

_“I said a little bit!” She stepped back, rubbing her arm as she looked away. “Not for all eternity!” Behind both of them, Jinyoung’s spirit pulled itself off the floor, listlessly wandering towards the commotion._

_“So you’re backing out, then?” Yugyeom’s voice grew cold._

_“You need to reverse this! Fix it! This wasn’t what I wanted at all!” the distraught girl ordered._

_“Are you backing out?” His eyes bored into hers._

_“I- yes.” She looked away as she answered. “I don’t want to be part of this.”_

_“Wonderful.” He lazily snapped his fingers, and in a blink she had vanished._

_“You killed her,” Jinyoung said in a dazed voice, as though just realizing it was really happening._

_“Hardly.” The spirit scoffed. “I simply moved her. A half year into the future she’ll reappear in society with no memory of any of this.”_

_“What did you do that she wants you to fix?”_

_The spirit didn’t respond, flicking his hand at the boy. Jinyoung vanished, and the spirit got to work hiding the bodies._

_The scene changed again. Sanha stood outside the closet again, feeling the same degree of helplessness she had the first time she’d experienced the scene. It seemed like it’d been a long time since the previous scene in the room. She couldn’t hear BamBam anymore, except for an occasional tentative tap on the door and some shifting around._

_It caused her almost physical pain._

_The door to the room opened loudly, alerting the both of them. At the noise, BamBam began pounding again, pleading for help. Sanha could do nothing but stare, with the sneaking suspicion she knew what was coming next. It was Yugyeom at the door. He crossed the room and pulled the bookcase aside, swinging the door open. The hope visibly drained out of BamBam’s face as he saw who it was._

_It was over before it started. The spirit grabbed BamBam’s arm and walked out of his previous body into the new one. Both bodies blinked rapidly before getting used to their limbs._

_“God, Bammie, I’m so sorry.” It was heartening to hear that was Yugyeom’s first response. The younger boy launched himself forward, wrapping the other in a hug. “I can fix this, I’ll fix it.” He repeated the words, making a promise._

_The spirit scoffed, flicking a hand, sending Yugyeom into a wall where he lay limp. “Shut up,” he snarled._

_There was a pause, as though he was listening to something in his head, possibly BamBam. “You shut up too. He’s not dead. Don’t worry, he won’t remember any of this later.” A smirk stretched across BamBam’s face as the spirit lifted his arms and inspected them. “Meanwhile, we’ve got work to do.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> screech at me over how badly i wrote this idk
> 
> (you can also find me on tumblr under the same handle to shout at me, if you'd prefer)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which I set up the final confrontation and then leave it to the next part because I'm an asshole
> 
> AKA I do more buildup than actual writing for the millionth time

It took Sanha ten minutes to stop crying.

At least most of her questions had been answered. There were tear stains on her notepad amid her hastily scribbled notes, but she’d at least come up with a semi coherent story. There were a few lingering questions, but most investigations had a few loose ends you could never quite tie up. Besides, it would be enough to get Jackson back, and that was her only goal at the moment.

Youngjae knocked on the doorframe, snapping her out of her thoughts. “Hey, we were going to. . . are you okay?”

“Yeah. Just. . . had a lot of information dumped on me all at once.” She half heartedly raised one of the broken picture frames. “Window to the past~!” she sang.

“It works?” She could tell he was excited.

“You bet.” She smiled tiredly. “I’ll tell you what I figured out in a hot sec; I’m gonna wash my face real quick. I’ll be right out.”

“Take your time!”

~~ ~~ ~~

Immediately after relaying most of what she’d learned from the pictures, Sanha had passed out on the couch. That wasn’t really an unexpected thing; she’d been going going going without enough sleep for too long. Mark took her notepad and covered her with a blanket and they tried to talk quieter.

“Is she always like this?” Yugyeom wondered aloud after a little while of working in silence.

“Sometimes.” Jaebum flipped through her notes, trying to find extra clues he may have missed. “She’ll get really into investigations sometimes and forget everything else. Stuff like her health.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t unlocked her Tragic Backstory yet.”

“She doesn’t usually go this hard, though.” Youngjae kept his eyes on the computer in his lap.

“Maybe it’s because of Jackson?” Jinyoung suggested. “They seem really close.”

“Could be.” Jaebum flipped back to the page with her investigation questions on it. “Do we have any lingering questions to look into?”

“If the spirit was flinging people around left and right in the beginning, why doesn’t he do it now?” Youngjae suggested.

“Oh, that one’s easy.” BamBam spoke up. “He’s using a lot of energy on the glamour, so he’s not as strong as he used to be.” Jaebum wrote both the question and answer down underneath her other notes.

“Doesn’t she mind that you’re looking through her things?” Yugyeom asked.

“Not really, no.” Jaebum clicked the pen again and set the pad next to him. “Sanha’s usually pretty open about her notepad.”

“So why do you always ask her what notes she has in it instead of reading them yourself?”

Youngjae stifled a laugh. “You guys know Sanha noona’s American already, right?”

“I guessed,” Mark mumbled as the rest shook their heads.

“Anyway, her notes are a complete mess, and it’s not just because of her handwriting. She’ll write using Korean grammar with English or French words stuck in because she thought of it in that language first,” he explained.

“Jackson’s usually the only other one who can decipher them without getting a headache.” Jaebum clicked into a new tab to hammer out a new search term. “Usually we just don’t bother.”

“I translate the best bits anyway.” Sanha’s sleepy voice caused some of the boys to jump in surprise. She stretched her way into a seated position. “So you guys just gossip about me while I’m asleep?”

“We worked for a while first.” Jaebum had noticed she was awake and wasn’t fazed.

“Sure you did.”

They headed out with two hours until the spirit’s deadline, for no real reason except it was harder to sneak around the dorm monitors at any other pre-midnight hour. Sanha wasn’t exactly sure what he’d do if they didn’t show up in time. He’d kind of lost his leverage. After all, it was impossible to hurt Jackson while he wasn’t in control of his own body, and the spirit didn’t have another body to use for that. Unless he-

“Sanha?”

She dropped abruptly out of her thoughts to see BamBam looking at her, a slightly concerned expression on his face. “Yeah?”

“For one, should I call you noona?” He fidgeted slightly as they fell to the rear of the group.

She shrugged and rolled her eyes into the heavens. “I have no actual idea. I wouldn’t know in the first place, and this time crap really threw me. Maybe we’ll decide once this is all over, maybe we won’t.”

He nodded. “And thank you again.”

That startled her a little. “For what?”

“Not mentioning the closet thing. Ever.”

“Oh.” Now she remembered. “Yeah, no problem.”

They took a few steps in silence. Yugyeom fell in with them, directing a question at Sanha. “Are you nervous?”

“Oh definitely.” She laughed wryly, almost at herself, speaking sarcastically. “I don’t know if this is obvious, but it’s my first time handling anything this serious.”

“Actually, it isn’t.”

And she thought she was shocked before.

“You’ve kind of been leading the whole time,” Yugyeom said. “I was shocked when it turned out Jaebum. . . hyung and Jackson hyung were older than you.”

“That’s a terrifying concept.” She forced herself to laugh. “Me as the leader?”

“You’ve been doing a pretty decent job of it,” BamBam noted lightly.

She didn’t want to waste her breath arguing, mostly because she couldn’t come up with a compelling argument. Was that conceited of her? She shook her head slightly. Now wasn’t the time for misplaced self hatred.

As they approached the dorm building, Sanha debated blasting _Back In Black_ or some other hero walk song, but eventually decided not to. There was no point in stealth, but there also wasn’t a point in waking up the whole country.

They hesitated in the doorway, so Sanha pushed forward, not wanting to wait any longer.

“ _Hey spirit dickhole!_ ” She shouted the words in English, hoping that would keep the others from understanding she was cursing. Obviously, it didn’t work on Mark, being a native speaker himself, but the rest looked blessedly confused.

“Kim Sanha.” Her attention turned to the stairs at the side. “It’s been a while. What, twelve hours? Thirteen?” Jackson’s body leaned against the railing leisurely, eyes locked on her.

“Try seventeen and a half.” She studied him. “By the way, oppa if you’re listening I’d like you to know that you _do not_ look good with blue eyes.”

“He’s offended.” The spirit’s voice was smooth, and she really hated the sleazy way he was talking. It felt weird to hear Jackson’s voice like that, even though she knew it wasn’t him.

“I’m sure he is.”

“To jump to the point, we want you to get out of bodies which aren’t your own,” Jinyoung cut in.

“And maybe go fuck yourself while you’re at it,” Mark mumbled. That really shocked Sanha, and she wondered if maybe she’d rubbed off on him somehow.

“Interesting.” The spirit admired Jackson’s nails. “And you’re willing to fight for that?”

“Yes.” Jaebum sounded more bold than Sanha felt, but they hadn’t stockpiled magical items for nothing. He’d even practiced a couple spells.

“Good.” Jackson’s eyes glowed. “ _Then fight_.”

He fractured into tens of Jacksons, spreading around the room and blocking all exits. The teens clustered back to back into a circle, caught off guard.

“You take the ones on the right I’ll take the ones on the left?” BamBam suggested, his voice tinged with fear even as he forced a joke.

“No holding back.” Jackson’s voice hit them from every angle. “Time I fought with my true power.”

“Oh, zip de dee doo dah and all that.” Sanha prepared her minimal knowledge. “Just get on with it.”

“As you wish.”

The Jacksons charged.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y i k e s
> 
> see you Wednesday hopefully (remind me if I forget)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the final battle happens and everything else is revealed
> 
> AKA if you thought just one Jackson was bad, just wait until there are hundreds of him
> 
> AKA I'm actual shit at writing fight scenes and no one is surprised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck i forgot to post this wednesday why did no one remind me

“And I thought one of you was annoying!” Sanha huffed as she kicked a Jackson away from her.

“Think it’s glamour?” Jinyoung had somehow ended up next to her in the chaos.

“No way!” Jaebum’s voice echoed from somewhere nearby. Seconds later he appeared, his ring glowing as he socked a clone in the jaw. “That’s too physical. Besides, we’ve got protection.”

A clone jumped on his back and dragged him away. Jinyoung immediately sprang to protect him and both of them vanished into the fray.

“At least we can hurt them.” Youngjae appeared from the ocean, slamming his elbow into a soft area.

“Must be the spreading of the body.” Mark somehow threw a clone across the area and knocked away one which was diving at Yugyeom. “The spirit isn’t solely in one body so it’s partially not controlled by him?”

“Good theory,” the Jacksons chorused, sending shivers up Sanha’s spine. A Jackson slammed into Mark and knocked him to the floor, pulling him out of sight. “Too bad you were wrong.”

“That sounds fake, but okay,” BamBam quipped, using a phrase Sanha herself had used way too many times before. He picked up on that stuff fast, apparently.

“I never thought,” Sanha grunted as she twisted her opal ring to cut a Jackson’s jaw with the gemstone, “that you would be such a fan of cellular meiosis.”

“Funny how that works,” the clone in front of her said blankly before dissipating into dust. Another one copied itself next to her, and she quickly turned her attention away. No time to celebrate her victory.

“You don’t make a lot of sense.” She ducked beneath a cluster and slapped the lavender sprigs she carried onto the floor, creating a force which threw the clones back a couple yards. A few even dissipated upon impact. More took their place, but that couldn’t be helped.

“Why do you say that?” The Jacksons trailed her as she ran to get out of the mob.

“You say no holds barred,” she panted, knocking a Jackson in the face with a brick and throwing it to the ground, gasping out a word in Latin which turned it into a barrier to those with mal intent, a small domestic trick she’d done many times before.

“No holds barred,” she continued, catching her breath as the Jacksons pounded on the barrier, watching it as cracks formed, oddly calm. “And yet, somehow you haven’t won yet. I’ve seen your power.”

He knocked the barrier down, and the wall neighboring it. A Jackson had her by the neck before she had time to react, dragging her over to a hole in the floor where she could see the chaos in the lobby below. “Does this look like losing?” he hissed into her ear.

It definitely didn’t look like winning, but she didn’t remark on it. Jaebum stood over a fallen Jinyoung, taking jabs at the Jacksons around him on occasion. He seemed to have also made a barrier around him, like she had, but the Jacksons hadn’t broken it yet. Jinyoung still fought, from the floor. Yugyeom and BamBam stood back to back, barely holding their own against the mob, and yet somehow they still were. She couldn’t see Mark, and was afraid of what that might mean, but Youngjae was still going strong, holding his own against the horde by standing on the receptionists desk and knocking them all down as though it was a game of King of the Rock.

“You’re holding back,” she spat, staring at the mess below. He increased the pressure on her throat, and she pulled at his arm with her fingers as her airway closed.

“I promise you I’m not,” he hissed into her ear. She went deadweight and slammed into the floor, her elbow landing in the clone’s gut and rendering him breathless.

“You’re holding back!” she shouted the words at him as she sprang to her feet. “You broke my barrier in ten seconds, but his is holding strong. You say your control is as strong as ever, so _why haven’t you won_?”

He glared at her and didn’t speak as he got back to his feet. The ruckus from below seemed far away, and her ears rang with alarm bells. “Would you prefer that I win?” he shouted. “That I crush you and take what was mine?”

“I make it my business to know other people’s,” she said. “And that includes you. I want to know it all. I want to know what makes people wake up in the morning and why they do what they do.” He glared at her, scowling darker and darker as she continued with her hopeless questions, fully aware that she might just be dead now. “What’s your deal, man? Why can’t you just let go?”

“ _She was my daughter!_ ”

Everything stopped.

“She was my daughter,” the spirit repeated in a broken voice, and as though his knees gave out he dropped to the floor. Time slowed to a thick syrupy crawl, and Jackson’s body slowed to a halt before it had even hit the floor. In its place was a young man, twenty something. Stout figure, dark hair, blue eyes. Completely broken.

“I was going to be there through everything.” He didn’t look away from her. “I felt my wife’s tummy and I told my little girl I would always help her, that I’d always protect her from everything.” He laughed wryly. “Who was I kidding? I couldn’t even make it to the hospital. One minute I’m on my way to see my baby girl, and the next I don’t have a body. I barely have a name.

“This boy, Jinyoung- he was her first real love. He broke my baby’s heart. I wasn’t about to stand for that; I made her a promise. She wanted revenge, and I was going to get it for her.”

“And instead you missed fifty years of her life?” Sanha asked softly.

“Spirits exist outside of time, if their body isn’t something they can return to. I’ve always known I could go back to her.”

“But now, you realize you’ve stolen fifty years from these kids too?” Sanha motioned towards the hole in the floor. “Their families think they’re dead. How devastating must that be, for their parents?”

Now he looked away. “It doesn’t excuse it; I know it doesn’t. I just- I made a promise. I got too into it and I ruined their lives.”

“You did take it _way_ too far,” she said. “Next time a guy breaks your daughter’s heart, just do as she asks, okay? No need to go above and beyond; she’ll understand.”

“Your friend should be fine.” The spirit motioned towards Jackson, still frozen midair. “As should the ones downstairs. I’m sorry for all of the trouble.”

“Hey, I’m not the one you should be apologizing to.”

“I’ll post a formal letter.” He sounded dead serious, but a little flicker gave away the joke. “And do a little to help them get resettled. It’s. . . the least I can do.”

“Good that. And hey, good on you for accepting that you did wrong and taking steps to fix it.” She smiled.

“Thank you, for listening. And for being so kind. Although,” he added, “your friend is completely right, that’s probably going to get you killed someday. If you were my daughter, I wouldn’t want you taking those sorts of risks for anybody, whether they turned out nice or not.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He snorted. “I’m sure you will.”

“Is this goodbye, then?”

“God, I certainly hope so.”

Time sped back up so abruptly she wasn’t prepared. Jackson slammed into the floor and almost crashed right through it. It was instinct and pure luck that kept him on that floor. He sprang up, looking around wildly. “Spirit- where’d he-” He didn’t finish either thought, pouncing on Sanha. “Your eyes aren’t blue, he’s not in you?”

“If he was do you think you’d know? Are you expecting him to tell you?” she teased.

“You’re completely right, possibly possessed Sanha. Prove to me you’re not the other guy!”

She drew herself up with a haughty expression. “ _Oui, c’est moi, le spirit dickbag. Comment est-ce que tu sais?_ ” (Yes, it’s me, the spirit dickbag. How did you know?)

He didn’t bother with a vocal response, immediately pulling her into the fiercest hug he’d ever given her. “Although I’m vous, not tu. I’m still older.”

“I don't think that's how France works.” She buried her face in his shoulder. “God, I missed you so much.”

“I missed you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ha i forgot how fucking bad this chapter was whoops oh well you have one chapter left of my shit and then we're done


	11. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the cast takes a bow and moves on with their lives
> 
> AKA Markson is hinted and I voice frustrations

The news media went into a frenzy over the next couple days as the once exploded dorm building appeared overnight, along with the students which had been missing. Not to mention these students looked the exact same as they had when they’d gone missing. Scientists everywhere were scratching their heads, but nobody really pestered the kids. That must’ve been one of the spirit’s parting gifts; not having to deal with that bullshit (he also did end up posting a formal letter, although it arrived several months later).

The families of the missing flew in on the first flights they could, and videos of the heartwarming reunions went viral online for the next three weeks. It was the sweetest thing Sanha had ever seen, and too many times they’d find her crying into Youngjae’s shoulder while trying to get ahold of herself.

The kids finished out their years at the university, although they planned to get out of town the second they could. The campus was a bit of a bad reminder, and besides the small town didn’t offer much anyway. Until then, they chilled and caught up on the years of culture they’d missed out on.

“Hey Sanha nuna, guess what Jaebum hyung taught me!” BamBam called, bursting into Sanha’s (now solo) dormitory. She looked up, and he dabbed so aggressively that he almost fell over, knocking over a vase as he did.

She was out the door before he could even start apologizing.

“ _The dab is dead, Im Jaebum!_ ” She dared to drop honorifics as she slammed into the boy’s dorm.

“He already left.” His roommate, Jinyoung, gave her detailed directions of which way he’d gone, and smirked when he heard the raging argument through the floors.

Truly, Sanha lived a quiet life.

Mark had moved in with Jackson, since the school had caught onto Sanha messing with the arrangements. They seemed happy together, so she wasn’t mad about it, and she joined the throngs suggesting they just fucking kiss already. They hadn’t yet, but the jury was still out. It wasn’t as though anybody saw what went on in the dorms; the school didn’t have the budget for cameras.

After seeing that Jaebum had taken it upon himself to introduce the excitable younger boys to the wonderful world of memes, Sanha made it a point to show them all the ones which were still relevant. It took a while, since they still had to teach them how to use technology, but regardless of actual age, they were sweet little babies compared to her and she couldn’t stay mad.

Even though BamBam was a flirty little son of a gun.

Nobody had gotten seriously injured during the final confrontation. Jinyoung sprained his ankle, and Mark had been crushed under a thirty clone dog pile, but there wasn’t any real lasting damage. The worst the others got were some cuts and bruises, and Jackson almost broke his nose.

Overall, Sanha was satisfied with the results of the investigation. It was pleasing to get a happy ending for everyone, or as happy as it could get anyway. Nobody was majorly injured in any way, physical or psychological. She could happily commit her time to wandering around in other potentially dangerous places with new sidekicks to drag along with her. It really made the expeditions fun.

And besides, now she could use one of her ‘Case Closed’ stickers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> k
> 
> thanks
> 
> screech at me on tumblr ( www.tumblr.com/blog/ismycapsloudenoughforyou ) i post one shots on there sometimes
> 
> just kidding i've been trying to finish a Soulmate AU series for Seventeen for half a year haha i'm shit at consistency
> 
> anyway, sanha is mine, got7 is not, and the plot is shit but also mine
> 
> bye


End file.
